


The Devil and the Road

by KateThorne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe- Musician, Anger Management, Angst, Cross-Generation Relationship, Dark Sam Winchester, Dark fic, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Homophobic Language, M/M, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:47:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 54,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KateThorne/pseuds/KateThorne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After John Winchester, small time rock legend's death, Sam returns to his brother and the crew on the road. Ghosts of the past keep rearing their heads and in the center of all his memories of a ruined, disillusioned childhood sit Gabriel, his father's former manager.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! Just giving you a heads up that this is an UNFINISHED fic. I loved writing it and it is one of my favorite works, but life got busy and now it's three years later and it just isn't gonna happen guys. So, so sorry.

For the past four years, Sam had been expecting the call.

He had just been expecting the call before TMZ, _People_ magazine, and all of his Twitter followers told him first.

"Gabriel." Sam said as he answered the phone. He still was not sure if he was more furious that Gabriel would have the nerve to call him or that Dean didn't.

"So, I guess you've heard then."

"Yeah. I heard." Sam bit the inside of his cheek. He wasn't going to cry in front of Gabriel, not even over the phone. "From the internet. Where is Dean?" Sam's resolve cracked, just for a minute, "How is Dean?"

"He's... he's not great, but his friends are here." Sam could hear it, over the line, even if Gabriel didn't say it.

His _friends_ are here. Because _you_ aren't.

Gabriel didn't need to actually _say_ anything to be a complete dick.

"Well, he'll call me, right?" Sam asked.

"You do know that phones work both ways, don't you?" Gabriel retorted.

"Right, well, thanks for the _condolences_ and all, but-"

"I'm not calling about that." Gabriel cut him off, "There are some forms you need to sign, I was telling you that I'm overnighting them. Figured I should call first. Dean wouldn't bring it up."

"Oh." Sam said shortly. Business, of course. "Ok, sure."

"Have a lawyer read them over, first. Otherwise they're pretty standard."

"I _am_ a lawyer."

"Oh, that's right."

"Goodbye, Gabriel."

"I am. Sorry. Sam. I would have led with that, but I figured you'd have just hung up on me."

"I would have." Sam said, right as he hung up the phone.

 

For as long as he could remember, his Dad had been on the road. 

Sam's first steps had been at a rest stop, when the tour bus ran out of gas. Sam had learned to read from a private tutor who made a classroom out of the cramped dining table that doubled as a bed in the trailer when they stopped for the night. The first friends that Sam ever had were Dean and the roadies.

Sam's first hand job had been by a groupie who's opening line was just how much he looked like his Dad. John Winchester. Small time rockstar, general drunkenness and world weary eyes to complete the whole picture. Professionally trimmed scruff to really sell it, but even Sam had to admit that John Winchester was great at what he did.

He sang heartbreak, wore it right on his sleeve but never once seemed weak with it. He had a strong voice, but not loud, just sure. Sam had many complaints about his father, but the effect of John's voice was undeniable. It didn't warble, or tremble. It was sure of all the sorrow in the world and it was sure of all the pain. And it went on forever, ran in his ears and pumped through his blood like music, long after the song ended. Even to this day, now that Sam was grown and all, utterly over being the prodigal son of the man, he found himself getting his father's songs stuck in his head, late at night or right before a big test.

A reviewer once called John's voice the voice of the man who narrates the world. Sam knew that John bedded her after, hell, maybe even during, the interview. But, that didn't mean she was off the mark.

There was a time of his life, young, formative years when adults seemed infallible. When there was a crucial little part of his brain that was convinced that wisdom and being right was directly proportional to being able to see over things. He would watch his father from the side of the stage, surrounded by crew and usually holding the sleeve of Dean's hoodie, and Sam would marvel at how brave his Dad was. On the stage, he looked so impossibly vulnerable, while blinded by the lights on him. Everyone was looking, holding their breath. He looked like a man facing down the enemy, one single person against the eyes of many. And he sang; sure and unwavering. His Dad was the bravest man in the world.

Sam didn't like their Dad after the show, though. He was twitchy and short tempered, always shaking his sons off and disappearing into the night. He never wanted to look at them when he was all keyed up and trembling, almost like he didn't really believe he'd have survived it. Like maybe he really had gone to battle in the crowd and in the music, and now he wasn't sure of what to do with himself in the real world.

So Dean would take him and sheppard him off towards their trailer, try and convince Sam to go to bed. Sometimes they'd stay up and Dean would tell Sam stories about their dad and their mother and girls and towns from when Sam was too young to remember. It wasn't until Sam was older, that he figured Dean was making most of them up.

Every Christmas, they got guitars and the vast majority of the time that Sam could remember his father looking at him, just him and Dean without roadies and managers at his elbows, he was teaching them chords. Dean was better at it, but Dean practiced more. Dean skipped his school lessons and plucked his guitar instead of learning his math. He never read Steinbeck or Dickens, but he did learn how to do a major string change.

When Dean turned fifteen, his Dad let him preform one of his songs before he came on stage, and it was just the shittiest week of Sam's life.

Dean was jittery the whole time, too eager when his father was looking but ghost faced when he wasn't. He was deliberately ignoring Sam, calling him a kid and rolling his eyes at Sam's childish neediness. He went to bed after Sam did and snuck out when Sam wasn't looking and it wasn't fair because Sam didn't have any friends. How could he? He never set foot inside of a school, never talked to anyone his own age besides the occasional kid of a motel owner, running around.

Dean was the one who played Go-Fish with him and Dean was the one who helped him play pranks on the road crew. It wasn't fair that Sam had to be the one alone in the trailer. Dean probably didn't even think about Sam while he was out in bars, drinking and talking to girls. But Sam just sat at home and waited for him to come back. All Sam had was Dean, but now Dean was following Dad onto the battlefield of stage lights and even the crew members couldn't do anything besides talk about how well Dean was coming along and how handsome he looked in his father's coat. It was the one that John wore on the cover of his only album that went platinum.

John was on the cover of it, standing next to his wife, America's dixie sweetheart, Mary Campbell. It was titled "Only Her and the Road." and even Sam was old enough to recognize that Dean was being groomed. Dressed up to remind people of her without him having to say it.

Sam didn't watch Dean's performance because Dean had called him a baby and made him cry that day. It seemed to really matter a lot at the time.

But Sam knew that he sang that song that John wrote for their mother, even before she was in the ground. And Sam didn't know her at all, but he was mad at John for giving that song away, for giving that love away to a bunch of strangers. That was probably when it started to change; that little part of him that used to think his Dad was a hero began to think of him as a coward. He wasn't facing down the enemy, not bravely declaring his love for her to the ears of strangers.

He was looking for her, replaying that memory over and over again turning it into a ghost to haunt him and Dean with. That song that got stuck in his head when he tried to fall asleep. Dean shaking under stage lights, trying to find some phantom image of Mary in the crowd, like John had implicitly promised he would. It never came to anything, besides picking over the scab until it was a scar the size of a canyon between them all.

It had started that night that Dean didn't come home after his show. It festered on all the lonely, inconsistent nights after. He got his own trailer and his own room once he started opening for John on tour and Sam sat in the quiet dark and hated their father more than anything in the world.

Suddenly Dean needed "space" to do grown up things and kid brothers weren't allowed. He needed his own rooms for the girls after the show. He needed his own space for drinks with the road crew. He needed a special bag that Sam wasn't allowed to touch. He'd peeked once, because telling a twelve year old to not touch something was practically asking for it. It was a pipe and rolling papers and sweet, musty smelling weed.

Dean had never left Sam out before, and now he couldn't seem to get a word in edgewise. John took his brother from him, put him in the line of fire and now Sam was all alone with their songs stuck in his head.

Then Sam turned eighteen and all that hatred building inside him for six years had been pressed into something salvageable.

Sam wrote one hell of a personal statement. He dropped his father's name without shame and got into every school he applied to. He sold all the guitars that his father had given him and went to Stanford. And he met a girl who insisted that she hadn't heard a single note of his father's songs and he told himself that he loved her.

And then, ten years later, TMZ called. And People magazine and his Twitter feed blew up with messages of sympathy.

John Winchester was found dead in his motel room in Dallas.

He got calls from complete strangers, reporters, therapists and groupies. Hell, he even got a fucking call from Gabriel.

But Dean never called him. And more than the loss of their mother had even registered with him, even more than the loss of their father, Sam felt the loss of his brother like a knife in his heart.

 

Jess stood beside Sam as he pulled on his suit. He hadn't worn a suit in a long time, not a real one, anyway. He'd always had one, he hadn't grown or shrunk significantly since Armani sent it to him at nineteen, hoping he'd make it to the Country Music Awards and would wear it.

Sam didn't go. But he kept the suit.

"You look really nice." Jess told him, smoothing the shoulders. "It's a little small. I don't think anyone would notice."

"Thanks, Jess."

Jess stood on her tiptoes and rested her chin over his shoulder, hugging him tightly from behind.

"I love you, Sam. I wish you'd let me go with you."

Sam sighed. Jess had called him the instant that he had hung up with Gabriel, telling him she was coming over, she was going with him to that funeral, she was never going to leave his side. Sam wasn't even sure if he wanted to go to the funeral, Dean's silence was like a slap in the face. There was a terrifying thought that Dean didn't want to see him, that turning up would somehow make this, probably the worst thing in Dean's life, a little harder.

Or, perhaps the worst idea of all, that Dean was waiting for Sam to make the first move, and Sam's silence was the one slapping Dean in the face. So, either Dean didn't want Sam there and staying away was the only kind thing Sam could do. Or, Dean was withering without his brother's support, his brother's fucking acknowledgement and staying away and staying silent was the cruelest thing Sam could do.

He couldn't decide, so Jess did it for him. He was going and she intended to go with him. But that was when Sam remembered who he was, a full grown man, a recently graduated lawyer and not the kid in the trailer that followed his Dad's tour.

Sam was going to get torn apart when he showed his face. Dean might be missing him, but between Bobby and Ellen and definitely Gabriel, he'd be walking into a lion's den. He could handle, he'd spent his life growing a second skin to drunken insults muttered under people's breaths and the snappish tempers of people too long on the road with only each other's company. There might be cameras. There would surely be at least one pushy reporter trying to find a new angle. The patriarch is dead, and his sons, the one who stayed and the one who left standing beside each other. It was a story that would sell, even Sam could admit that.

But he didn't want anyone to sell Jess and somehow, just being in proximity to people who made a living off of someone else's life turned everyone inside out and against each other. It would be hard enough for Sam to be reintroduced to the culture where everything you said could be sold. He didn't think he could walk on eggshells and still look over his shoulder to be sure that Jess was doing the same.

She certainly wasn't happy about his decision. She did, however, offer to lend him one of her suitcases. She did not remember why she previously hadn't let him into her half of their shared closet.

Sam threw the box onto the dining room table where she was studying. She looked at him in shock for a moment before she registered what it was she was looking at, then all the color drained from her pretty pale features as she remembered what had been in the box she had spent so much time ignoring and just how nasty Sam could look when he wanted to.

"You said you didn't know." He said softly as he threw the tee shirt onto the bed.

It was faded from being washed a few million times and a size or two too small to fit Jess now. Creases were pressed into the fabric, from years and years of hiding in that closet, under the suitcases and boxes of knick knacks she had forgotten since they moved in together.

Despite the shirt's age, on the fabric, as legible as it was the day it was pressed said the letters, "Only Her and the Road." And there, in his damn leather jacket, sat John Winchester with one arm around his wife and a guitar in the other.

"Sam," Jess warned, standing up nonetheless. Jess was tall and Jess was tough but Sam was a force to be reckoned with when he wanted to be. "Sam, don't overreact."

"You _lied_ " the whispered accusation was met without resistance.

"It's a shirt, Sam. And... c'mon, it's unreasonable for you to expect that someone would have never heard him! They still play it on the radio! It wasn't why I'm with you. It had nothing to do with it! It has nothing to do with you!"

"You _lied_." Sam growled, "If it meant nothing why bother? Why spend five years-"

"Sam, I've never brought him up. I never did anything like that!"

"Why did you _lie_?" Sam asked again.

"Because." Jess took a long breath, crossing her arms over her chest, "I wouldn't be here with you, five years later if I'd said that, yes, I did know who you were. And yes, I knew who he was and once, in nineteen fucking nintey seven my Mom went to his concert and bought me a shirt. You push people away too fast, Sam. Assume that they want you for the worst reason. It wasn't like that. I wasn't like that. There's a reason you don't have any friends, Sam. And it isn't him. I'm sorry that he's famous and I'm sorry everyone knows, but... Sam. You're the one who is letting it define you."

"You know how it is?"

"I didn't mean it like that."

"You know how I _feel_?"

"Sam-"

"You have no idea what I've seen and done. You never will either. Sorry, Jess. I hope your lie was freaking worth it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jess retorted, following him as Sam turned and left the room. He was calmer, now. He always had been when he knew what he needed to do. "Sam, stop right there and tell me what you meant. I love you and I deserve to know what-"

But Sam had already found his keys and was prying his copy of their front door key from his keyring.

"No. No. Sam are you _fucking kidding_ me? I deserve more than this. I deserve better than this. I've loved you for five years and you need to sit here and talk about this with me like a goddamn adult."

But Sam was already opening the door.

Loving someone had never stopped Sam from leaving before.

 

Sam didn't need to call his brother to know that Dean would still be in Dallas. His brother still wore John's leather coat. He still had the necklace Sam won for him out of a crane machine. He was sentimental. He didn't just up and vanish when things got real or painful.

Sam wondered if he got that from their mother.

He sent his text to Gabriel, who had sent a car to the airport, not bothering to come along to meet Sam himself with the driver. Gabriel had always been intuitive like that.

Gabriel hadn't always been his father's –and now, apparently, Dean's- manager, but it certainly felt like it. Whenever John needed to be herded from one plane to the other, Gabriel was there. Whenever John needed to be picked up from a bar, Gabriel was there. Every Christmas that John was preforming, every birthday that John had forgotten, Gabriel was in the background, ushering John from Sam and Dean, leading him toward the stage.

Gabriel's job was making sure that John was where he would make the most money, and Gabriel was very good at his job.

And now Gabriel was still around, so presumably his new job was keeping Dean in the lime light, vulgarly bright now that everyone was talking about the tragic death of John. The only time anyone really talked about the Winchesters was when one of them died.

Dallas. Sam watched the city pass by, rolling pillars of concrete freeways and off ramps. Sam had always liked Texas. It was flat and boring to drive through, so Dean always ended up playing car games with him. Ten hours of marathon 'I Spy' with roadie's tee shirts and food wrappers in the van. But it was quiet as the driver went down the interstate this day, professionally so.

They pulled up to a Hilton just a half hour away from the airport and then Sam saw him, by the entrance of the hotel lobby, with a phone to one ear and a finger plugged into the other as he tried to listen over the noise of cars pulling up to the curb.

"Yeah, yeah. Check your email. I need to go." Gabriel said as Sam came closer. He angled his head to look up at him, taking a deep breath. Sam hadn't gotten any taller, but he had gotten broader. Filled out a bit in the shoulders and people started treating him differently. He didn't know why he had expected Gabriel to look different; he was still only about Sam's mid chest height, with a hair cut that hadn't changed since 1997. He had bright eyes that were easy to miss as his brow was usually scrunched up in frustration or annoyance. He wasn't round, but his face was. He had always had softer features than the rest of them, almost feminine, until he started talking and the words that came out were as salty as a sailor's.

Yellow- brown eyes narrowed up at him as Gabriel pocketed the cell phone.

"You actually came." Gabriel said softly. It sounded weird from him, that note of doubt and... was it pity? Sam had been in the real world, where people loved each other and were nice to each other and gave hugs when someone died, so he had to fight the urge to pat Gabriel's shoulder. Winchesters didn't touch. Only Ellen, and she did it sparingly.

Ellen. Sam missed Ellen.

"Well, ok, then." Gabriel said as Sam looked over his head, as though the thought of Ellen would make her magically appear. "Let's get you inside and settled. No one has caught wind of us in this hotel yet, so no paparazzi as of right now... but it's all over the news. They'll swoop once they find us. Garth will get your bags."

Sam wordlessly followed Gabriel into the hotel lobby. Gabriel didn't seem at all put off by Sam's silence. He was used to being all but ignored.

"Should I take you to Dean's room or wait for you to text him first?" Gabriel asked as they stepped into the elevator.

"Hold off. A bit." Sam said and Gabriel gave a curt nod.

"How was... the flight?" Gabriel asked, that annoying and foreign pitying tone of his. It was his mask, his work mask and Sam didn't have the patience for it. He didn't have the patience for Gabriel's snarky sympathy, underneath every word of it was the accusation.

He wouldn't have had to be on a flight if he hadn't left. He wouldn't need to give Dean this kind of space if he hadn't left. John might have not drunk himself to death in a motel room in Dallas if Sam hadn't left.

Sam was regretting his decision to come here, to leave Jess and her facade of love. Because here there was little faking it. It was too much attention from employees who slowed their work and stared out of the corners of their eyes as he passed. Gabriel and his knowing tone, predicting his every move like they were familiar.

They stepped out of the elevator into the sterile, quiet floor. It had that generic smell of air freshener, that sort of cushioned feel of someplace too clean to be a real home. Gabriel guided him to the left, pointing with his chin to where the hall forked and turned right.

"Dean's room is 658. Be sure to knock. Don't sneak up on him." He handed over the card key.

Sam took it and opened the door.

Gabriel stood dumbly as Sam stepped inside and dropped his coat on the bed. Sam stared at him, willing him to just go away.

"Sam... ah... we all missed you." Gabriel started. This was new. Gabriel always knew what he was going to say, even if no one wanted to hear it. "We are... here... for you. You know. I'm sorry. About John. You'll text me if you need... anything."

 _We_ missed you when _you_ abandoned him. _We're_ here for you, even when _you_ weren't there for him.

Fucking Gabriel.

"Bye, Gabriel." Sam said flatly, and shut the heavy door in his face.

Sam hated hotels. The silence was the symphony of his childhood.

And, not for the first time, but certainly the most gut wrenching, Sam wished he had a different life.

He wanted a house, full of his father's things, that smelled like him to wrap himself in.

Because he did love his father. He loved the way it felt when John had picked him up when he was smaller. Artful scruff rubbing against his face when John was in a playful mood. He liked the way John sounded when he first woke up in the morning, a slow, lazy growl, like a bear prodded out of hibernation.

Sam would never smell his Dad's aftershave or hear his father laugh. All that was left was a legend of a man with a guitar on a stage, singing about love that was dead and gone.

And one day Sam would forget how he fit in John's strong arms. He'd forget the stubble hidden dimple on his cheek. He'd forget his father, hell, he'd been trying to forget his father since he was eighteen. But now Sam wanted a home to remember him in, not a series of generic hotel rooms and concert posters.

John Winchester was dead and gone and Sam didn't have anything more of him than some fan with a CD.

It was all too clean.

Sam pulled a pillow over his face and cried for the first time since he left.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam didn't have to worry about texting Dean, because Dean found him first. While Sam's instinct was to hold back and wait, Dean's was to come racing forward, always willing to break the ice and make the first move. It was probably why people liked Dean more.

Sam must have dozed off because it was dark outside when he heard a knocking- ok, pounding- at his hotel door. Gabriel was more like a cancer, silent and invasive. Without John, now Dean was the only one who thundered.

"You fucking, son of a bitch." Dean hissed as Sam opened the door. His brother was mad. It didn't take a genius to figure it out.

So Sam fell back into his oldest, tried and true method of self defense against his big brother; he threw his arms around him and held tight. Instinctively, Dean's hands wrapped around his shoulders and Sam was bigger now, so the dynamics were different, but it was the same as it had always been. Sam apologizing without having to do something embarrassing, like say it out loud and Dean forgiving him without a minute's hesitation.

Dean grabbed a fistful of Sam's shirt, pulling him closer but not admitting it out loud.

"Son of a bitch" Dean repeated weakly and Sam released a snotty chuckle.

"Dean-" Sam started, and Dean just nodded. "I'm-"

"I know. Me too." Dean said gruffly.

And they were done talking about it.

Unfortunately, that meant they were done talking. They both stared at each other for a moment, neither wanting to look away because for all the things that Sam had hated about life on the road, Dean had never, not even for a second, been a part of that. Even when Dean was mad at him, avoiding him, calling him pipsqueak and bitch, Dean was Dean and Sam could never regret a minute with him.

"Drinks?" Sam offered.

"Yeah." There was another beat of silence. "Wanna go out somewhere?" Dean offered.

Sam looked around his hotel room. Suffocating silence. Eight years of explaining where they'd been, what they'd done and who they were now sat humid in the air. It was a conversation that needed to happen.

Later.

"Definitely." Sam said, reaching behind him and grabbing his coat.

 

 

 

"Gabriel told me that this would be a decent place." Dean said, stepping into the old tavern.

The bright side of leaving the hotel meant escaping the silence, the weird limbo of grieving and feeling lost and numb. A bar meant alcohol. Sam could really, really use a drink, and Dean was always looser with girls to leer at.

However, being people who were on the news at the moment, meant that they had slim pickings. Dallas was a big city, so it was safe to assume that everyone had heard. Celebrity deaths do that. They had needed to find a bar that was dark and empty, maybe a little dirty. The sort of place where no one paid attention.

Dean had never really been poor in his entire life. Their father was a one hit wonder, but he always had a gig. There was no mansion, but there was always money for beer and a decent bed. That being said, Dean and John had always been drawn to the sort of dark, dirty bars like this one. Sam had always chalked it up to them not wanting to be recognized, but now he saw some of the charm in it; it was the one place in their life that wasn't trying to be anything else.

They tucked themselves into a booth when they walked in. It was a Monday. Notoriously slow.

A woman in her forties came to their table and deposited two cloudy glasses of water before fishing her notepad out of her apron. A second glance at Dean was the only indication that she recognized him. She brushed past it and took their drink orders.

Dean took a drink of his water. Sam started tearing the corner of the napkin.

"How long you planning on staying?" Dean asked.

Sam shrugged. "I'm done with school and done with... everything that was there."

"For real?" Dean asked, doubtful, wanting to ask more but not knowing how, "You always got a place with us, Sam." Dean offered. That particular offer had never been off the table, no matter how hard Sam tried.

"Yeah?" Sam laughed, a hollow thing. Even after all these years he didn't know the appropriate emotional reaction. Dean used to tease him about being a girl, in touch with his feelings but that wasn't true. Dean was the one who made love and loyalty and apologizing easy. Dean was the one that had never let pride get in the way. Sam was just sulky and glum as a teenager and so he was credited with a more complex emotional range than Dean was. "Where are you going? We don't even have a home."

"Gabriel thinks I should lay low for a while. Start touring in about eight months or so. He got me a gig opening for Gordon Walker before Dad passed. It was a solo job. Can you imagine? _Gordon Walker_."

"Wait, _touring_?"

"Well, yeah, Sam. What'd you think?"

"I mean, Dad _just_ died." Sam said and Dean winced, but he had to know that Sam would be the one to say it out loud. The first one to say it out loud since he arrived in Dallas. Grief was a funny thing in the fact that absolutely no one seemed to know what to do or how to act. It was almost funny, except it wasn't. "Do you really think he'd want you to be singing, still. And he was going to let you open for Gordon Walker alone?"

"I'm thirty-two, man." Dean said, rubbing his bicep as the waitress brought their whiskeys. Neither was going to bother fooling around with beer. Not tonight. "Couldn't open for the old man my whole life."

"But, did you ever even really want to do it? I mean, we have money now. We can retire. You don't have to be his-"

"His _what_?"

"You don't have to anymore. That's all."

"What, you think I've spent my whole life just following him around like a puppy because it never occurred to me not to? Fuck you, Sam. I am a person, with an ability to decide what I want."

"What chance did we have, really? I mean, growing up on the road, with all these people who looked and felt like family but got a check at the end of the week. That wasn't a family, Dean. And it wasn't our home. We never knew any different."

"Don't you go lumping me in there with you." Dean said. He finished his whiskey and waved for another one. "You don't get to say how happy I was or wasn't."

"Yeah, singing his song over and over again for state fairs and dive bars. Sounds like your dream, Dean." Sam muttered.

"I wanted my family, Sam. That's what I wanted. And I was happy because I had you guys and I thought we had a good thing going. It didn't look like everyone else's but... but I was happy." Dean broke off as the waitress came back once again to refill Sam's drink. "Leave the bottle," Dean said, handing her a folded hundred.

"Well. Well I was lonely, Dean."

"How could you have been lonely? Your family was there the whole time. Wasn't that enough?"

Sam was quiet as Dean topped off his whiskey and then refilled his own glass.

"I guess not." Dean said curtly, and took a long drink, his eyes roaming the bar, a whole room that didn't have to listen to this conversation. A whole room that didn't have to listen to Sam Winchester complain about things he couldn't change. Dean never bothered, never complained and was, all around, a more likable son than Sam had ever been.

Sam forgot how that felt to see it. Dean's hair getting ruffled by the sound guy after his set. John looping his arm around his eldest when Dean nailed the F chord. People just loved Dean and he loved them back without it even occurring to him that sometimes it might be hard.

Sam had forgotten how lonely that felt, watching the whole world assert that Dean was more welcome than he was.

Just like after he left Jess' place, just like after he boarded the plane, just like after Gabriel left him in that hotel room all silent and clean, Sam wondered why he even bothered to show up at all.

Sam and Dean drank in silence a little longer. Sam was getting tipsy and Dean broke the ice by blowing a straw wrapper at him.

Dean smiled, then Sam smiled and he couldn't help it. So he started talking, that had always been his problem with drinking. He just started talking about every little thought in his head, every thing he ever saw. So, after six drinks, Sam was running his mouth and Dean had always seemed to like listening to him like this. Dean always knew how to make someone feel good if he wanted to. Sam never learned to do that.

"So, yeah, I just left. She had this... this box of Dad's stuff, like, a _shrine_ or something to him." Sam finished telling his brother.

"Fucking psycho." Dean agreed, pouring out the last of the whiskey bottle into his glass.

"Yeah, we'd been together for... for... like three years. I lived there and she had all that stuff in, like, our closet." Sam shook his head, shook Jess face from his memory. She had seemed genuinely hurt, but she must have been a good actress, to have used him the whole time. "I mean, like, three years."

"Fucking. Psycho." Dean repeated. He glanced down at his phone. It was a very Gabriel thing to do.

"Jesus, you look just like him." Sam said, out loud, apparently, since Dean looked up and grinned.

"Like... Dad?"

"No. Well, yeah, a little. You always looked like Mom and you know it. No, you look just like fucking Gabriel with your smart phone or whatever. Like, who is he always texting? He only knows _us_."

Dean rolled his eyes, an old, placating smile on his face.

"God, with this again?"

"With what again?"

"Nothing." Dean said, still grinning as he threw back the very last of his drink. Sam was feeling kind of warm and restless all over. Drinking never made him sleepy, it always made him want to burn the world to ground for something to do. Jess never liked it when he drank.

Maybe he should buy the next bottle.

Dean was still smiling like a teenage girl with a secret so Sam kicked him under the table.

"With what again?"

"Just you and _Gabriel_. All you ever did as a kid was talk about Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel. So fucking _boring_ , dude."

"Ok, I was _complaining_ about Gabriel because he was a total bag of dicks."

"Yeah, sometimes, but you had a weird thing with Gabriel long before that." Dean creased his brow as he remembered, "Yeah, when you were a kid or whatever, he took you to get McDonalds or something while Dad had an interview and I think it was the first time we ate there and it wasn't a drive through. He must have let you play in the ball pit or whatever because after that you wanted to follow Gabriel around everywhere.And if Gabriel wasn't around, you wanted to know where he was and if he was around you wanted him to play with you. And when we were alone you always wanted to know if I knew what his favorite color was or what his favorite food was or when his birthday was. Dad was so relieved when that phase passed."

"I never did any of that." Sam snapped, his ears getting hot. But it sounded vaguely familiar, like someone else's story he'd heard too many times. "You're making shit up to embarrass me."

"I promise, I'm not. That embarrassed _me_. And poor Gabriel, of course. He was like, twenty five and had no idea what to do with your attention. I think he just pretended the whole thing wasn't happening."

"Stop being an asshole." Sam murmured.

"Hey, dude, it's whatever," Dean said, finally easing up, "It was a long ass time ago. You've done way more embarrassing shit between now and then. Everyone forgot, 'cept me. I'm a big brother, I'm supposed to remember stupid stuff you did when you didn't know better and rub in your face at the most inappropriate time."

"Thanks, Dean." Sam said softly. "You killed this bottle, I'm getting another. More of the same?"

"Uh, not for me, no." Dean said. He looked annoyingly sober, "I'm switching to beer."

"Really?"

"Don't want to be drunk tonight." Dean said with a shrug like that was it, but it wasn't enough, that was for certain. There were a million more things to say about that. Winchesters didn't open a bottle of anything unless it was to get drunk. It was just what they did. Dean had never decided to not get drunk before.

Sam shrugged and went to the bar, only wobbling a little bit.

When Sam got back to the table, Dean wasn't alone. There was a good looking guy, pretty, even. Kind of pale and delicate with a shock of dark hair and intense blue eyes. He was like Dean's opposite, but in a nice way.

"Hey." Sam said as he looked the newcomer over. Dean was looking at the guy too much, like he wasn't a stranger.

"Hey." Dean said, "This is Castiel- Cas. He works for us, he's my wardrobe guy."

Cas gave a serious nod.

"Hey." Sam said again, trying to place why some random guy got to be a part of their night. Dean scooted over, letting Castiel sit in the booth beside him and left his arm on the seat rest, not touching, but creating a sort of cocoon of presence behind Cas' head. Cas didn't seem to notice the natural gesture. Sam squinted between the two of them before offering to get Cas something.

"Cas doesn't drink," Dean explained, "Dry and sober since the day I met him. Brought him here to try and be a good influence on us."

"Dean said you might need a Designated Driver." Cas explained, "But thank you."

Sam laughed at that.

"Dean drives better when he's been drinking," Sam said, nudging his brother with his toe, "So worried about getting pulled over he actually focuses on the road instead of the radio. Or the girls in the next car. Or how his hair looks."

It was very funny. Sam didn't understand why Dean was getting all uncomfortable looking.

Cas squeezed Dean's knee under the table and Sam realized, like a punch to the gut, what was going on. Jess used to do that to him when he was talking too loudly or he drank too much.

"A lot has changed in Dean's life since you've been gone." Cas said, almost sternly.

"Yeah." Sam said, nodding, "Yeah, ok, sure." He raised his eyebrows at his brother who shrugged.

"So, Cas, always been interested in... wardrobe, was it?" Sam tried.

"Not particularly."

"Just a fan of the music, then?"

"Not really."

"Cas needed a job and he has a cousin on the crew so that was that. He's been with us for about... three years, was it, Cas?" Dean supplied since it didn't seem like Cas was going to. Sam couldn't tell if Cas was just a man of few words or completely unimpressed with Sam in general. He wouldn't be the first.

"Something like that, yes." Cas said.

"Cas has been helping out, a lot, since... since. Yeah."

"Yeah." Sam echoed.

Castiel looked at him for a beat, his eyes giving nothing away but taking in everything about him. Castiel must have heard about Sam, from Dean, from the other crew, god forbid from his father. Castiel had probably heard every terrible thing about him, saw them more clearly now since he hadn't watched Sam grow like the rest of them.

It was an uncomfortable feeling, being seen like this. Dean cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry for your loss. Your father was a fair man."

"If you say so." Sam said quietly into his drink.

"He was, though." Dean said in a tone that wasn't to be questioned. Complete faith. John had taught him well, except Dean never did manage to learn when to drop the act.

Because that's what it all was; just some elaborate act. Something to make an audience feel something. The man devastated by his dead wife, chasing her song around the country and only coming alive on stage for strangers, teaching his sons to do the same.

Like they would ever find Mary like that. Sam was the only one who seemed to realize that the harder they chased the memory of Mary, that song John wrote for her that spoke of all the regret and loss in their perfect marriage, the more it slipped away from them.

They were chasing her reflection in a mirage, jumping ahead of them, always ahead of them on the endless blacktop.

Sam raised his eyebrows but Dean was getting belligerent now.

"Like father like son." Sam said wryly. "Dad spent most of his life, all of our lives, trying to impress a dead person. And what are you doing? Picking up where he left off? It was getting more and more desperate the past ten years with just him and that same damn song. With you, it's pathetic. Mom's dead, Dean, and now Dad is too and you're just running in circles, don't even know how stupid it all looks. You think she would have wanted this for you? You think he'd want you back on the road less than a year after he died?"

"You got no right saying stuff like that." Dean growled. "You got no right talking about them like that."

"They were my parents too, Dean. They were _my_ only parents too and now they're dead." Sam shook his head, his glass was empty and he wanted another. Having something in his hand helped him collect his thoughts. "Never gave us nothin' Dean. Just took, took, took our whole lives and you're too loyal to even know you got swindled out of a whole life."

Sam stood and headed to the bar, swaying a little but acting like he didn't notice. He got three steps when he felt his brother's hand on his shoulder.

"You're such a fucking bitch, Sam." Dean hissed. "Fucking... this is why I didn't bother calling you. What are you even doing here? Gabriel offer you money? That it? Want to sell Dad's stuff at some auction and live your life pretending it all never happened?"

"Fuck off, Dean." Sam said, the alcohol making his voice slur and wobble against his will. He wanted to wrap Dean up in a hug, grab him around the waist and let Dean tuck his arm over his head. Like they used to. Before Dean grew up and left Sam all alone, just like the rest of them. Before Dean became their Dad and took his side. Sam wanted to be seven again, when Dean seemed so big and smart. Sam wanted it to be like it was before this crater between them opened up.

Instead, Sam threw a punch.

"Fucking-" Dean reeled and the whole empty bar fell even more silent, some Garth Brooks song went on about friends in low places, loud and poignant sounding with the silence and shock ringing in the air. Dean cradled his jaw, Cas came over from the bar, shouldering past Sam and reaching out.

Dean threw out his arm, moving Cas from between him and his brother.

"How long you been wantin' to do that, huh?" he asked. "Shoulda guessed." Dean drawled, his slow, Texas adopted accent coming out when he was trying to sound sure of himself. But Sam knew what Dean looked like when he lied. Sam knew Dean only lied when he was hurt.

Dean swung and hit Sam square on the shoulder, throwing his arm and making him stumble. He didn't land on the bar itself, but it was a close call.

"I'm callin' cops." the bartender said suddenly, reaching the phone behind the counter.

"No, we got it." Castiel said, taking Dean by the arm and pulling him towards the exit.

"Don't leave this one." She called again, and Sam got up to follow them out of the bar. Properly chastised, but Dean was always the one who never knew when to call it quits.

"What are you even doing here, Sam?" He called over Castiel's shoulder he was half carried to the door. Dean was staring at him, so much hurt in those eyes. There was so much innocence that Dean had, by some miracle, maintained in all this.

Dean screwed more women and did more drugs than Sam would ever comprehend, but Dean had never known the beast in Sam's gut. It was an ugly thing, always waiting in the shadows, dying to roar out and ruin anyone too close. Dean had probably never truly hated a single soul his whole life. Sam knew hatred as his oldest, truest friend.

Dean's eyes were watering, his jaw was turning pink and the question still hung in the air, like it had for Sam's whole life; behind the sets, in the car beside his brother as their father beamed proudly at his oldest. What was he even doing here? He didn't fit, and it seemed a cruel trick for life to play, just throwing him in with John and Dean like they could all belong together.

What he even doing here? Sam still didn't have an answer.

 

 

Sam bristled as he watched Castiel make a phone call beside the Winchester's iconic Impala. In the passenger seat, and looking very uncomfortable to be there, sat Dean. His brother stared purposefully out the front windshield, ignoring Sam and deliberately not touching the spot on his face that Sam had hit. Sam's shoulder was throbbing, so Dean had to be hurting even more. Sam had always hit harder.

Castiel walked over, slipping his phone into his pocket and locking Sam with an icy stare. An odd pick, for his brother; a man and a serious one at that. Maybe Dean really had changed.

"Gabriel is on his way." he said curtly. Sam groaned. Castiel didn't roll his eyes but his expression didn't seem likely to lend sympathy, "I'll wait until he gets here and then I'm taking Dean to his room."

"Stellar." Sam said under his breath.

"Indeed." Castiel said, "He'll have a bruise. At the funeral, where there will be photographers and people watching, whispering, talking about him... he'll have a bruise."

"Thought you were a make-up guy. Cover it up."

"I'm wardrobe, and I shouldn't have to." Castiel said cooly. Sam was facing out toward the parking lot, toward the road where Gabriel's crummy station wagon would come rattling down to collect him.

"You're right." Sam sighed. "I know you're right. I'm sorry."

"I am not the one who needs to hear that."

"Well, have you ever tried apologizing to Dean? He hates it. Wants to pretend it never happened. Best way to apologize, our Dad used to say, was to just not fucking do it again."

"Then don't fucking do it again." Castiel said calmly.

"I won't... I didn't mean for it to get that far, I didn't mean to hit him."

"I wasn't just talking about the assault."

Headlights splashed over them, a creaking door opened and closed and Gabriel stood at the driver's side of the car with his arms crossed over the roof. Sam felt like a petulant teenager, or perhaps remembered what a petulant teenager he had once been, as he stood and headed to the car.

"Thanks, Cas." Sam said, turning to the wardrobe guy, "For... you know."

Castiel didn't even acknowledge hearing him, just turned and headed to the Impala and Dean.

 

 

 

Sam and Gabriel drove in silence. Rudely, Gabriel didn't even acknowledge that Sam was sulking.

"I don't want to talk about it." Sam mumbled finally, as they stopped at the world's longest red light in history, stewing in their own venomous thoughts.

"Fine." Gabriel said simply.

"But Dean started it."

"Fine."

That wasn't the answer Sam wanted, wasn't the way he wanted it to go down. Fighting with Dean left him raw, open and broken and feeling inadequate as always. But Gabriel? Fighting with Gabriel was easier than breathing.

"You didn't have anything better to do tonight? Come pick up my drunk ass?"

Gabriel took a breath through his teeth and rolled his neck, his fingers flexing on the steering wheel. Like Sam's question was such an imposition.

"What?" Sam needled, "You got something to say? You always got something to say. That's why no one likes you. Ever notice how people stop talking when you walk into a room? Hey. Hey, Gabriel. Ever wonder why?"

"Jesus, you're chatty like this, aren't you? Not an improvement."

"Fuck you, Gabriel."

"Fine, Sammy. Whatever."

"Don't call me that. 'm not a kid. They all used to call me that and no one ever took me seriously. That's not.. that's not for you to use. That's not who I am anymore."

"Ok." Gabriel said gently, "I'm sorry. It just slipped out. I'll be more careful, ok?"

Sam crossed his arms over his chest but nodded, stretching his legs out until they hit the corner of the floor and the wall. No leg space whatsoever. Sam grunted.

"After all these years you couldn't buy yourself a new car?" Sam asked, looking to the bald spot on the floor of the driver's side, the cracked cup holders, the busted radio.

"Not really a priority of mine."

"But, I mean, you've worked with Dad forever. Since he started out, got that big single and everything. He went platinum and you were his manager. What have you been spending all your money on all these years if it wasn't new clothes, haircuts or cars? You don't have a house. Never saw you with any girl. No wife, no kids. What do you even have?"

Gabriel gave a dry laugh.

"How much money did you think that your Dad was making? He had one single that was mentionable, at most, twenty seven years ago. It was enough to keep us fed and keep us moving. But, there wasn't much more."

"And now? That your cash cow is dead?"

"Sam." Gabriel warned. "Do not make the mistake of thinking that you and Dean are the only ones grieving."

"Murderers usually feel bad for their victims, then?"

"Shut the fuck up, Sam." Gabriel's brow furrowed, narrowing his almost pretty eyes into ugly little points and it was satisfying to watch. Sam had never done narcotics, but he figured that watching Gabriel like this, his spine curling and tensing, his eyes small and cruel... it must have been what addicts felt with a needle in their arm.

"No. Fucking, no. Why is everyone acting like they can't _see_ what had been happening the whole time? He needed help. He needed... he needed to not be doing this, not on the road, out in the open, without a home, fucking _wallowing_. And it was you guys. You, Gabriel that made him like that. You profited off his misery. Why is everyone pretending that this just _happened_?"

"He was a fully grown man who was able to make his own-"

"He was broken and crippled and you pretended to be his crutch and his friends and his family. And... you you let him drag me and Dean along with him."

"You know, Dean isn't complaining. Somehow it has always been you that's been so hard to please."

"Dean is brainwashed. Like some plant you put in a dark corner so it grows all weak and distorted, angling toward any light in it can find. Offer Dean an ounce of affection and he'll cut off his hand if you ask him."

"Dean is happy. But you wouldn't even know what that's like."

"So, are you worried? About Dean and _Castiel_?"

"What about Dean and Cas?"

"C'mon. You know what. The way they look at each other, and the way they touch. Your shining star is super gay. How are you going to sell this one? To your country music, gun toting, bible-belt clinging fan base? You used to unbutton his shirt that third button and make him look like a woman's wet dream. What are you going to do now?"

"Nothing. It doesn't _matter_. It never _mattered_. Just because women wanted to have sex with him didn't mean that they got to. It's just a character he plays."

"So you don't care if he and Cas go get gay married in Canada and adopt a million babies?"

"No. Do you?"

"No." Sam said quickly, "Because I went to college and I'm an educated, sympathetic person unlike your redneck throwback John followers. What will they say?"

"They don't have to know about Dean's private life. It doesn't have to be like that."

"It will be, though. I can't believe you don't care."

"Well," Gabriel tilted his head a bit towards Sam, and softly said, "I'm gay too. So maybe I'm not the person to ask that sort of thing to."

Sam's mouth snapped closed as he looked at Gabriel out of the corner of his eye.

"You're not...gay"

"I assure you, I am."

"I've never seen you with... you haven't dated anyone. I've never seen you with a guy and-"

"I didn't say I was _good_ at being gay."

"Gabriel-"

"It really doesn't matter but I give fewer fucks about who Dean goes to bed with every night than anyone else on the whole crew." Gabriel shrugged, "He was lonely for a while, after you left. He is really happy, now."

They pulled up to the hotel, and Gabriel drove into the underground parking garage, his car echoing along the concrete. Sam didn't know what to say, the rug had been pulled out from under him with Gabriel's confession and it didn't seem fair that no one had told him.

Gabriel was gay.

Gabriel had been gay since Sam could remember, the memories seemed different, now. It was the same flashes of vivid memory through the swirl of childhood blur, nothing particularly interesting or damning. Gabriel's eyes closed under his sunglasses as he catnapped in the parking lot before a show. Gabriel holding two shirts up to a teenage Dean's chest, trying to decide which looked more convincing. Gabriel's eyes passing right over Sam's head as he walked into a motel room, looking for John or Dean or anyone else.

And Gabriel had been gay the whole time. It didn't seem like it should matter, but it did.

Sam was thinking too hard, the heavy weight of the gin and whiskey making his thoughts throb in his head, made him feel their melancholy weight to the pit of his gut.

"Sam, what's it matter to you who Dean sleeps with?"

"Doesn't." Sam said, furrowing his brow, "'m happy for him. But-"

"Oh." Gabriel said softly, he was guessing the correct answer by the tone of his voice. "Sam, does it matter to you who _I'm_ sleeping with?"

"No." Sam lied, "I just didn't know."

"Not many people do. Dean and Cas, obviously, but the rest of the crew... I think they've guessed."

"I mean, you lied to us." Sam said slowly, his brain moving even slower than the words out of his mouth. He didn't know what he was saying or thinking or even what he wanted but it was just so fucking unfair.

Gabriel, with secrets when Sam didn't even have a minute of privacy. Gabriel had watched every tantrum, every awkward phase, every moment of Sam's excruciating life somehow ignored and displayed at the same time. And Gabriel had lived Sam's whole life with this, this whole identity that he got to keep all to himself.

Sam knew it didn't matter, shouldn't matter but Gabriel was sitting next to him, breathing too loud in the crappy car. Existing and living and being a whole, complex person so obtrusively in Sam's space. All Sam had now, here in Texas with this small man in the small car, was his hurt. It wasn't fair that he was drunk and he felt naked and Gabriel got to be the one, always the one, in control.

Sam had never had control before Stanford. Of course it would be Gabriel that reminded him.

"I hardly lied to you. It wasn't any of your business where I put my junk. You were a kid and you weren't even my kid."

Sam forced himself to laugh around the tacky lump in his gullet. The alcohol made his throat dry, his clammy hands wiped along the thin felt seats.

"You didn't put your junk anywhere, Gabriel. When would you have found the time to get laid, between being in the closet and being on the road?"

"That's not inaccurate," Gabriel allowed. "I did find comfort, here and there, but it was few and far between."

There was something in that voice, a note of familiarity that made Sam's stomach pull tight and sharp. Like yearning, like bitterness. Like Gabriel had watched people be happy and felt none of it for himself.

It sounded like loneliness. It sounded like Sam's whole life but it couldn't have been because Gabriel was the one who took John away and made Dean someone else. Gabriel was the one who kept them on the road.

Gabriel was the one who ruined his life, and he was just rubbing salt into the would, making Sam feel these things all over again.

They were parked in the garage, sitting there, neither looking at the other and neither moving to get out of the car. Sam hated the sound of Gabriel breathing, hated the molecules of heat off his body, hated everything from the pitch of Gabriel's voice to hangnails on his fingers.

But it was too quiet and too cold in that hotel room. Too much of a reminder of how things used to be and how they would never be again. Sam wanted to burn it all to the ground, just to get the restless feeling from his hands and the whirlwind of thoughts from his head.

"Is it any better now?" Sam asked, and Gabriel shrugged. "Think you'll get laid more that he's dead? Maybe Dean will have some cult gay groupies you can prey on?"

"I can't, "Gabriel swallowed heavily, "I can't think about that..."

Sam didn't want to think about it either, so he turned his body to Gabriel's, angling himself in the car and getting only a weird look from Gabriel before he was reaching through the space between them, putting his hand in Gabriel's lap. There were no teasing strokes, no easing into it.

Just a blunt weight of his hand, feeling Gabriel's body like it was real, like it was human and Gabriel could feel him at all. Gabriel hissed through his teeth, more shock than anything else.

But there wasn't any protest and no one pushed him away.

It wasn't much of anything, Sam realized after the surprise of seeing his hand there faded a bit. It was just, denim pants, warmer than Sam expected. And Sam realized, numbly, that he had been expecting it. It was a dark, humiliating thought from his dark and humiliating adolescence, one that had been repressed a thousand times over; the tapes in his head rerecorded with thoughts of women and warm wet fold to lose himself in. There were too many thoughts coming forward tonight, Sam was defenseless when that one slipped through, passing right through his mind and heading straight to his hand.

It wasn't the first time he'd thought about it, only the first time he'd actually made the connection. Gabriel's eyes flicked closed as he rolled his head back.

After a moment, or perhaps infinity in that parking garage that was too bright and harsh to be romantic or anything besides what it was, whatever it was, Gabriel's hips pulsed beneath his grip. Gabriel's flaccid cock began getting firm, and Sam almost laughed at the idea of Gabriel having a cock that could even get hard and hiding it away for all these years. Except Sam didn't laugh. He stared at his hand and what it was doing. It seemed to have a game plan if Sam's head was only trying to keep up.

And when Sam's hand massaged the member, the growing silhouette in the denim shadows, Gabriel finally asked, "What are you doing?" but in a whisper, like maybe he didn't want Sam to stop.

"Have you seen me?" Sam murmured, but he squeezed the cock- Gabriel's cock again- "You're gay and I'm beautiful, don't you want me to do this?"

"-Why are you-?"

Sam's fingers found the metal zipper, pulled it down like Sam had been planning to do it his whole life. Gabriel wasn't wearing underwear, and Sam thought for a moment that Gabriel must have slept in the nude. He'd gotten the call and gotten out of bed, only bothering to throw on pants and had his bare dick rolling around in his pants, pressing against naked thigh and fabric.

It seemed weird to think that Gabriel had a cock at all, but it was in Sam's fist now, almost fully hard and bursting through the split in his jeans like it had been waiting Sam's whole life to break free.

That was a weird thing to think, but Sam had a distinct deja vu feeling about it.

He slid his hand up and down Gabriel's shaft, feeling the hot skin roll under his fingertips and milking pungent pre-come from the slit at the tip. It smelled like man and sex in the station wagon, caged in the car with them taking up the excess room left by the silence.

"Sam," Gabriel sighed, like they were lovers.

There was promise in that voice, a confused, happy promise to give Sam anything in return. Sam's cock twitched, grew content and chubby, taking interest and sniffing around.

There was sex in Gabriel's voice, like Sam had never heard before, like maybe Sam had never known Gabriel before.

Sam jerked his hand back, excruciatingly sober all the sudden. Gabriel didn't say anything, just watched as Sam stared, horrified at what he'd done. Sam got out of the car, running to the solitary hell of his hotel room, running away from this night, this week that wouldn't seem to end.

He glanced back over his shoulder, to Gabriel in the car. Gabriel just sat, his head back against the car seat, his pants still open around his still-hard cock, un-moving.

Watching Sam leave him there without an ounce of surprise.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for non-con/rape at the end of the chapter.  
> Dark!Sam.

_"Hey."_ said a voice, something kind of distant yet familiar. there was a rapping sound, a thunking of something against the walls of Sam's head. His brain pulsed two heavy, painful beats in response to the intrusion.

Sam rolled over, away from the noise. In his space, taking his time, rude. He blinked up at the TV he had left on and processed the images of a blender, slicing up ice and frozen blueberries with ease. t could all be Sam's if he called, but only for a limited time.

There was a knock on the door, again. Sam unhappily remembered that was what had woken him.

 _"Hey, Sam."_ Gabriel's voice. It was gentle and invasive, getting under his skin like a cancer.

And the first image in his mind was Gabriel's head thrown back, his face squeezed tight like it hurt and it felt so good and the way his sex smelled in the tiny car. Fucking shit to Hell.

 _"Sam? Sam, you need to get up. You left your phone at the bar, you weren't answering._ "

"Ok. Ok, one minute." Sam hoarsely called through the wall All that whiskey had rubbed his throat raw. Whiskey and fighting and fucking, the Winchester way.

 _"Hey,_ can I come in?"

"Uh..."

_"Just for a minute, people can hear me yelling through your door."_

"Um."

"One minute?" Gabriel pleaded again.

"Yeah, yeah, ok." Sam got up and that was when all the rocks in his head came crashing forward to the front of his brain, making him see white spots for a moment. A hangover. Perfect.

Still clutching his forehead, he opened the door to let Gabriel in and the manager passed him, closing the door behind himself. Sam dropped back down on the bed, closing his eyes against the cruel light screaming through the bottoms of the window curtains.

Gabriel handed him a bottle of water which Sam promptly held against his throbbing forehead.

"So..." Gabriel started, grabbing the desk chair from the corner of the room and dragging it so he was sitting across from Sam.

Sam took a deep breath. He didn't want to talk about it, or maybe he did. He wanted to pretend it never happened, or maybe he wanted to do it again. It was... it was Gabriel. Gabriel. How the fuck was Sam even supposed to know what he wanted when Gabriel was the way he was? Bossy, pushy, heartless. All the things that had made Sam suffer and still, Sam wanted to be next to him, make him feel things and do things.

"So, they're releasing the body today." Gabriel said, "We need to decide what we're going to do with it... John didn't leave a plan of action and Dean... well, I don't think Dean knows what he wants. John was raised catholic. He has that tattoo on his arm and all, fans might wonder... if we didn't give him a catholic funeral. But then comes the question of where we should bury him."

"Why... why are you asking me these things?" Sam asked, his voice breaking. He had forgotten, for a moment. It was a little, tiny moment where he wasn't cold and numb. A little moment where he was allowed be worried about a drunken half of a hand-job. A moment where it was like that even fucking mattered.

"Because, Sam." Gabriel said, "Dean is having a hard time with it and that's why you came out here, right? To help settle things?"

"Maybe. Yeah." Sam rumpled his hair, leaned forward and focused on what Gabriel was saying. He could do this, he was an adult, he just always seemed to forget when Gabriel was around. "Um, so go back to the funeral thing. Dean and I weren't raised like that, I don't know anything about it."

"Ok, well," Gabriel took a deep breath, "It's pretty basic. There's a wake that we might want to open to his fans. No media or anything, but something where people could gather and remember him. I got a call from a few of his colleagues who want to send things. Gordon Walker wants to send something. So does Steve Wandell. Then there would be a mass which we wouldn't have to leave open to the public. Then the burial."

Gabriel gave a shrug and leaned back, pinching his nose.

"It would be expected. I'll give you time to think about it, but we're meeting the mortician in a bit. We could bury him here, or send him someplace. He's from Kansas, that'd be appropriate."

Sam buried his head in his hands, wishing he wasn't hungover for this.

John being buried, it seemed almost sacrilegious. Sam had only known the man on the road and in the wind, it seemed wrong to think of burying him in some cemetery of some city he just meant to pass through.

"Sam?" Gabriel asked. When Sam looked up, he saw that Gabriel's eyes were small and watery and pink around the ridges. The sacks beneath the eyelids were like purple-red gouges in his face, dark and unnatural because Gabriel had been a lot of things but tired had never been one of them.

"Sam?" Gabriel asked again because Sam had forgotten to answer, "You don't have to do this if you're-"

"No, I need to do this. I want to. I just I wish... that things were different." Sam opened the bottle of water Gabriel had given him. Of course Gabriel would know exactly what to bring a hungover Winchester, he'd had twenty odd years of practice at it. "I need to do this." Sam repeated. "I'll go meet with the mortician, wake Dean up. We need to do this, he's our family. It shouldn't be left up to anyone but family."

Gabriel pulled his lips into a thin line, but didn't say anything further. Sam hated him for it.

***

There was a bruise.

Purple and mottled and roughly the size of Sam's middle, ring and pinkie fingers. Dean didn't say anything about it. Sam was starting to think that maybe last night hadn't happened, with the way that Gabriel was acting the same, didn't look at Sam like he did the night before, didn't use the same voice as he did when Sam's hand was on him.

That voice that was almost like they were lovers.

But Dean wore the proof on his cheek, even if he refused to acknowledge it. It was just another of Sam's tantrums and everyone was deciding to refuse to give it any attention. Sam waited in the passenger's side of the Impala while Dean and Castiel said goodbye in front of the hotel, their postures guarded, aware that everyone could see them.

They were disagreeing. Castiel kept looking over at the Impala to where Sam sat, but Dean was acting like his head could only turn in the opposite direction. Castiel hadn't had the sort of practice Dean and Gabriel had.

They were silent as they drove to the funeral home where John's body had been transported. Sam had a hangover, Dean had a bruise and none of it seemed to matter because John was cold and dead somewhere. It wasn't an abstract idea anymore, it was the truth. Sam was going to see his father for the last time and it was going to be a still, lifeless body.

"What happened?" Sam finally asked. Dean glanced over at him. "With Dad? Like, what was he like before the show... and stuff. Did he... did he say anything?"

Dean rubbed his nose, turning his eyes back to the road and squeezing the steering wheel.

"No. Not that I actually know of. He was a few doors down from my room, Gabriel was between us. And, we were supposed to hit the road, you know? And Dad wasn't answering his phone. Wouldn't wake up, we figured, but you know how he is after a show. Or how he...was..." Dean rubbed his nose again, roughly, like that would make it impossible to cry. "So after a couple of hours, Gabriel got worried and started bugging hotel management to let him in the room. They wouldn't, see, cause there was still like eight hours till check out and all this privacy crap.

"He ended up giving some poor maid three hundred dollars and then they found him. I was still in my room, I didn't know how worried everyone else was, they must have been trying to play it cool, figured he drank too much and didn't want to bother us—me.

"Then Gabriel came and got me a little while before the ambulance showed and he told me. The fucked up thing, Sam? I wasn't surprised. I mean, I was devastated. He's our Dad. We ain't got much family anymore. But... I wasn't surprised."

"What do they think happened?"

"You know Dad. It's pretty obvious."

"So... Mom died of an overdose and Dad died of alcohol poisoning." Sam said hollowly, Dean made a snort sound that could have been a laugh if it was actually funny. "And us? We'll probably be the death of each other."

Dean laughed at that, a real laugh, but it was short and quickly covered up once they remembered what they were doing and where they were going. Once they remembered that their father, cold and alone someplace, surrounded by strangers. Kinda like he had been in life, but quieter now, and more permanent.

"Glad you're here, Sammy." Dean said finally. "Don't know that I could do this alone."

"Sure you could. You've got Cas and Gabriel. I'm not much good to this family. You could've done this alone."

"Probably. But I didn't want to." Dean said, letting his focus turn back to the road. "I'm glad you came back."

 

****

The morgue wasn't much different from the hotel, actually.

It was the same, stifling silence in the hallways, the same tacky stucco wallpaper and the plush carpets that swallowed the sounds of their footsteps. The difference was, there weren't any neighbors that would wake in this place, this weird purgatory of grief driven politeness and respectful silence.

They saw the body first; and it was just as Sam had expected and yet noting like he had imagined. John looked younger, somehow, than Sam remembered. Fewer parenthesis lines framing his mouth, but more silver flecked in his hair and beard. He looked just like his father, but paler and more final.

He didn't smell the same, not like whiskey and cigars and leather. He smelled like formaldehyde and lemon freshener.

Dean had a harder time with it, glancing down at John quickly then anywhere else, but Sam couldn't tear his eyes away. With Dean, the shoe would drop later. It'd come up again, in a month, in a year, in a bout of unjustified anger or inappropriate alcoholism. Dean was so Hell bent on being their father, he'd carry that moment with him for the rest of his life.

But Sam?

Sam wondered what kind of man he was. He looked at his father, the pariah and the messiah in a single, fleeting human body and felt... hollow. A penny of loss down a well of numbness. He wasn't angry anymore, how could he be? He'd spent his whole life hating his father for loving the stage and the song more than his flesh and blood. He spent the past ten years imagining meeting John again, finally popping the huge ugly infection of hate that had been festering for ten years, just under the surface of his skin.

But his father seemed so small, now. So insignificant.

And Sam didn't feel any of it at all.

"So," the mortician said, his voice a professionally practiced low tone. Clear and concise but still so, very sorry for their loss. "I have been told by the will executor that you wanted the body to be transported and buried in Lawrence, Kansas. He's already given the approval and-"

"Wait, there was a will?" Sam interrupted.

"Yes." the mortician said, sifting through the stack of papers on his desk. "It was written about six years ago, the executor of the will was a 'Mister Gabriel Novak.'"

Sam's spine went rigid at the mention of Gabriel's name, at this time above all the others, but Dean sighed and glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.

"All right, and he made the arrangements already?" Sam continued.

"He waived his right to make the judgement on John's behalf. It's up to you boys how you'll want to remember him. Now, perhaps the cemetery where a loved one is already buried would be a place to start."

"Mom wasn't buried, she was cremated." Dean said, half to Sam and half to the intruder on the uncomfortable heavy moment. "I don't know where his mom was buried."

"If John was baptized, you'll have those records. That would be an appropriate place to lay him to rest."

And there is was again, that distinct feeling of discomfort. 'Laying' his father to 'rest.' It was the most surreal part of the whole experience. Sam didn't know what to feel about the idea of leaving his father in the ground somewhere.

Even when Sam went Stanford, he'd felt his father and his brother around him, in the air and on the road, like a dream or a cloud that could never be pinned down or stuck. He could run from it, from them, and everything they stood for, but he could never leave them.

But the idea of leaving John behind-

"Ok." Dean said suddenly, his voice thick and gross. Like mucus and misery inside his mouth. "Yeah that sounds... appropriate, or whatever you said. I want to do that."

The mortician glanced at Sam, who gave a nod of consent.

"Well, in that case, we can talk about how you'll want to move the body. And when you'll be making those arrangements. Have you thought about what kind of coffin you'd be interested in?"

A pamphlet appeared out of nowhere, and Dean looked like he was going to be sick, so Sam took over, nodding along as he was told about all the kinds of boxes they could pack their father away in.

Sam nodded along, picked a maple wood one that seemed simple and sturdy, like John would have liked. It kind of looked like a bar top. Sam didn't know if that thought was poignant or in terrible taste. It was funny how the two bled together in the worst time.

"So, do you have any more questions?" he asked, closing his catalog with purpose. Sam shook his head, eager to be somewhere else, wishing he had somewhere else to be besides with Dean and this grief and accusation that couldn't be ignored between them.

"How'd he go?" Dean asked suddenly.

"How did your father pass?" the mortician asked. "Oh, well, he suffered a series of strokes. It looks like he had several smaller strokes before the larger, fatal, one..." He crinkled his brow at Sam and Dean's blankly stunned faces and continued, "The hospital released a report... He probably had a very bad headache, laid down to sleep it off and... and went peacefully."

Sam had to choke down his inappropriate snort. John Winchester going peacefully. There was a joke in there, somewhere. A big, cosmic joke.

"There was nothing anyone could have done..." he continued, his voice trailing off as he looked between the brothers.

Dean looked over at Sam, out of the corner of his eye. Sam didn't want Dean to see him thinking it was funny. Dean was the one who seemed to have the appropriate reactions to this thing, even if they were delayed.

"That's good." Dean said softly. The mortician raised his eyes, "Better than the alternative."

For some reason, Sam didn't think that John would agree. But Dean was the better son, the better person, the better adjusted.

So Sam nodded again.

***

They got back to the hotel and Dean went to his room with Cas. He looked so tired, and so pitiful with the weight of his father's death and the mark of his brother's fist on his face. Sam didn't object, even though that meant that he was on his own.

Dean was tired, emotionally drained and withdrawn. Sam didn't want to sit still, he didn't certainly didn't want to go to bed, didn't think he could close his eyes if he thought of his father doing the same and never waking up. A boring, human, old man's death. It didn't seem fitting, but Sam didn't have any idea what was appropriate, but he was sure that it wasn't him.

He lated an hour of hotel TV before he called a cab.

He was in that bar, from the night before, within thirty minutes.

 

***

 

"Gabriel." Sam slurred into his cell phone. On the other line, Gabriel gave a long, tired sigh. "Gabriel, I'm at... I'm at that bar. The one you sent Dean to- And some bitch won't give me my car keys. Fuckin- come and pick me up. She won't let me go by myself... bitch."

"Is it that one on the District?" Gabriel asked. His voice was deeper, like he had been sleeping. Sam was silent as he looked around the bar. for some clue. Gabriel sighed again. "Never mind. I'll figure it out. Try to not be an asshole while you wait for me, would you?"

"Fuck you, man."

"Yes, yes." Gabriel muttered. "Keep your panties on. I'm coming."

"You're wearing...panties."

"Yes, exactly." Gabriel said distractedly.

 

***

 

Gabriel's hair was creased in odd angles when he walked into the bar. Besides that, he looked the same as he did when he bid Sam and Dean goodnight at the hotel. He looked the same as he did when Sam was a teenager, waiting for Gabriel to pick his Dad up when John was too drunk to do much of anything but stare. Sam hated Gabriel so much right now.

Gabriel, with his stupid hair. Gabriel the stupid executor to his father's will when he had two perfectly able adult sons and one of which was even a lawyer. He still gave that to Gabriel. Fucking Gabriel got everything, and Sam and Dean were left with the leftover scraps of a life that Gabriel permitted them. Maybe Sam would feel his father's loss in death if he'd felt like he'd had his father in life.

Sam hadn't started out his drinking with the intention of getting furious at Gabriel. It just sort of happened. The longer he drank, the more alone he felt. The more alone he felt the more he realized how little he was feeling of his father's death. John was gone and Sam felt hollow. It was infuriating.

Gabriel didn't exactly look thrilled with Sam at the moment either.

Gabriel and the bouncer walked up to Sam, the big muscled bald bouncer guy looked unsure. "You know, normally we'd put 'em in a cab and send 'em on their way but... we wasn't sure. Considerin'."

"Yes. Thanks for holding on to him."

"Yeah, thanks for keeping me here while I waited for my handler." Sam sneered. Gabriel barely spared Sam a glance. "He always shows up. Hasn't got nothing better to do. The fucking dick."

The bouncer glanced down at Gabriel again and kept talking like Sam wasn't there.

"You gonna be alright?" He asked him.

"Yes, we'll be fine." Gabriel sighed. "Stand up, Sam. I'm not carrying you."

"Suddenly so shy about getting your hands on me?" Sam purred. Gabriel made his skin itch. Always had since Sam was a kid. Sam couldn't sit still when Gabriel was near, he wanted to rip his own skin off just to do something.

Sam tried to stand, but his leg must have fallen asleep, or maybe his bad knee gave out because he pitched forward. He was caught by the bouncer and Gabriel; the bouncer around his arm and shoulder, Gabriel's hands lower on his chest.

Maybe his arm fell asleep too, because he couldn't feel the rough impersonal hands of the bouncer, just Gabriel's small, pinpricks of heat over his pectorals.

"'m fine. 'm _fine_. Lemme go. Stop coppin' a feel, Gabriel."

Between the three of them, they got Sam's feet to work well enough to get to Gabriel's station wagon. The bouncer helped to fold him in while Gabriel settled into the driver's seat, smacking Sam's hand away as he went for the radio.

Sam tried not to pout, but the exhausted huff Gabriel let out told him he wasn't doing the best job. Gabriel. Fuck Gabriel. Sam wanted to hit him, he wanted to choke him. Gabriel was a piece of shit, spent his whole life taking energy and power from John, taking Sam's family away from him. How dare Gabriel be exhausted by him. But Sam knew how to get even now, knew how to make Gabriel go helpless and undignified as Sam had been his whole life under Gabriel's thumb.

Now that Sam had felt Gabriel in his hand, his thigh, his cock. Now that Sam knew the smell of him, it was easier. Sam reached over and rubbed his hand roughly into Gabriel's crotch.

"Jesus, fuck." Gabriel yelled, throwing Sam's hand off of him and glaring while alternately watching the road as he drove. "The fuck are you doing you drunken gorilla?"

"Take me to your room and let me fuck you." Sam murmured. He reached over again and cupped Gabriel through his jeans. "Let me make you my bitch."

Gabriel pushed Sam's hand away and gave Sam a big shove for good measure. Sam shoved him back, and the car swerved.

"Are you fucking _psychotic_?" Gabriel shrieked, righting the car again, shaking now.

"If I am, it's because you made me this way."

"Jesus... Sleep it the fuck off, Sam. Just, shut _up_."

"What did you think would happen? When you took my Dad away from us? Show after show? City after fucking city all those years in a tour bus. What did you think would happen?"

"Oh, so this is my fault? Me? Personally?"

"Like you tried so hard to do the right thing." Sam grumbled, "Like you were trying to help Dad get sober. Trying to get me and Dean into schools, help us be normal. You didn't give a single fuck and what did you think would happen?"

"Shut up about things you don't know about, Sam." Gabriel said. He had that annoying adult tone that Sam was to slap out of him. "You have no idea."

"It's my _life_ , Gabriel. You took my life from me and now I'm... now I'm like this and it's just what you get."

"Dean's fine." Gabriel said and it took Sam a minute to figure it out. Alcohol was making him fuzzy around the edges, making time go too fast. That and the smoke from the angry fire in his belly, where he kept all the injustice in his life, were kind of hard to see though. "Your brother was the same as you. He's fine."

"What are you saying?" Sam asked. Gabriel ignored him, like when Sam was a kid and adults wouldn't listen. Damn it, that was the last fucking feeling Sam wanted to remember in his life and ten minutes in a car with Gabriel and suddenly Sam was eleven and couldn't escape it. Sam raised his voice, "What are you saying?!"

"I'm saying sometimes people are born fucked to Hell. Sometimes people are just freaks. Dean can trust people. Dean can fall in love. Dean can hold his goddamn liquor and not hit the people driving his ass home when he's tipsy. You can blame me 'cause there is something in you that is mad all the time. But I say you're just an angry, asshole, victim claiming loser. 's always someone else, isn't it, Sammy?"

"Don't call me that."

"Fine." Gabriel said, and they drove in silence, "Fine."

 

***

 

They got to the hotel and Gabriel left Sam to head toward the elevators, his room was only on the second floor but Sam wasn't ready to sleep yet and it was probably Gabriel's fault.

"You're just going to leave me to wander around until I wind up at my room?" Sam asked. Gabriel's shoulders dropped.

"You'll be fine." Gabriel exhaled but he didn't sound so sure.

"'m drunk." Sam mumbled, "'m drunk and I need some help. So, help me."

"You're in a mood and you just want to be nasty to someone. You've got you head in your own ass and you want to tell me about the scenery. I'm tired. I do, actually, have things to do besides what you believe."

"Yeah. Your _job_. I forgot it was your favorite excuse. Your job. My fuckin' life. Dick. I'll find my own way to my room. Maybe."

"Can't just ask, can you?" Gabriel muttered, heading toward the elevators. "Always so _demanding_."

"Don't talk like that." Sam snapped. "Don't talk about how I _always_ was."

"How about we just don't talk?"

And for some reason, that made Sam even madder. For twenty seven years, that hatred had been building in his gut, churning inside him with no hopes of getting out. He'd been ignored. He'd been resented. He'd been shuffled around from place to place like a piece of luggage, not a fucking human being and Sam finally, finally had a chance to vent that hot air that had consumed him for so long. He didn't want to stop talking. He'd spent most of his life not talking.

The elevator announced their arrival and Sam followed Gabriel to the same cold room he always seemed to be trying to escape. Somehow it felt too small and yet as lonely and unending as the arctic when he was in there alone.

He wasn't done talking. Sam grabbed Gabriel's arm, a little surprised at how well he could do it, and dragged him into the room.

"Let go, you yeti." Gabriel barked, using his nails to cut into Sam's hand. "Off. Off. Bad moose."

"'m bigger than you Gabriel." Sam said. He didn't let go. He squeezed until Gabriel winced, but it wasn't real because Sam had never seen Gabriel make that face before. Gabriel's whole arm had never fit in Sam's hand before. "You always used to ignore me, but I'm bigger now. Isn't that weird?"

"No. It's genetics, dumb ass. Let go."

"NO!" Sam said loudly. Maybe he yelled, because Gabriel looked nervously at the thin hotel walls. Like Sam's anger was something that needed to be kept decent. Sam shook Gabriel, dug his hand in hard enough that he could almost feel the fingers on the other side. Gabriel tried to jerk his arm back at that.

"Knock it off, Sam." Gabriel whispered threateningly. "Your temper was annoying as a child. Now it's..."

Gabriel's face played off the shadows in the room, they caught on the big, ugly pores of his skin and made weird dents along his weak chin. Gabriel looked too small and vulnerable it made Sam want to hurl. Sam was the little one, the one always over looked. This was like a lie. He hated every little line in Gabriel's skin and the way he could feel little, weak pulses under his hand, where he was holding Gabriel hard enough to feel his blood beating beneath his skin.

Sam had spent his whole childhood with Gabriel looming over him and now he was so small and his skin was so tissue thin. It made it seem like it was all in Sam's head.

But it wasn't. Gabriel had ruined his fucking life.

"'m I scaring you?" Sam asked Gabriel, and his voice sounded so low and dangerous to his own ears the he shivered.

Gabriel didn't say anything, but his eyes did flick to the door, like he wanted to be anywhere else.

And that had always been the problem, hadn't it? Whenever Sam had a question, or an opinion or a feeling; John was too drunk and Gabriel was out the door, anywhere else, able to evade Sam's entire fucking childhood.

Gabriel couldn't run away now. The hot air in Sam's stomach shrilled at that knowledge. Sam dragged Gabriel the three extra feet and threw him onto the bed.

Sam hadn't thought it out. Really, didn't mean anything by it. He wanted a place where Gabriel was off his feet, unable to brush Sam off and walk away like the eighteen years of precedent before it.

But, Gabriel took stock of his prone form on the bed, with Sam menacing above him and made his own panicked conclusion, trying to roll off and away.

And Sam hadn't meant anything by it, but who the fuck was he to even think that Sam would want to do that to him? Fucking, self centered, entitled, ass-wipe Gabriel, that's who. Didn't know Sam at all, but he talked like he did.

Sam got onto the bed, grabbing Gabriel by the shoulders and forcing him back onto his back, pinning Gabriel's hips and waist with his thighs. Gabriel kicked out, his eyes wild and after a moment, Sam realized that he was saying something. Everything around Sam was numb, his ears were filled with the sort of roaring sound, like a sea shell held to his ear.

"Stop it, stop it, you can't just _do_ this because you're mad. You're not allowed just because you're drunk. Off, off, _off_!"

Gabriel was reaching for the corner of the bed, trying to haul himself out from under Sam but fuck if Sam was having any of that. Gabriel's wrists were so tiny when Sam squeezed them in his fists, went so easily when Sam shoved them back onto the mattress, on either side of Gabriel's head.

"Let me go." Gabriel begged him. It was too weak of a voice, not the man that had taken Sam's shot at normal away from him. He fucking hated that voice, like nails on a chalkboard. "Please, let me go."

"No. NO! Fucking look at me. You can't... you can't ignore me anymore."

"Didn't mean to ignore you. Never meant to. I'm sorry. Let me go." Gabriel whispered.

"What did you think would _happen_?" Sam demanded. Gabriel still wasn't listening, he was trying to get away. "What did you think would _happen_ when I was just a teenager and … and … there weren't any girls around, just, Dad's groupies and my stupid brother who was too cool for me and... and you."

"What do you want from me, Sam? I'm sorry that your Dad was who he was but... but..."

"But you were just doing your _job_." Sam sneered, "Your job was moving people around like they were puppets. Taking away all my free will. What if I had gone to a school, huh? Maybe I'd had a girlfriend or something. Not just my Dad and my brother and you. I grew up all distorted. Didn't have anything to think about... No body to think about like _that_ besides..."

Gabriel looked up at him now, something pitying in his eyes. And Sam didn't like it, because it was a little fucking late for Gabriel to be giving a rat's ass about him now.

Sam sneered and released one of Gabriel's hands, using it to rub profanely against Gabriel's crotch. Gabriel hissed and tried to squirm away, taking his newly freed hand and scratching desperately at Sam's wrist over his most vulnerable area. But Sam was drunk, and his hands and fingers were just parts attached to him. Kind of like how the edges of his vision were blurry, so was the feeling in Sam's fingers. The only way he even knew what he was doing was by watching his hand moving in the hot 'v' between Gabriel's legs and the way Gabriel's eyes were huge and terrified.

The freed hand gave up its attempt at pulling Sam off his crotch and settled for shoving him away. Gabriel's hand fit over most of Sam's face, the sides of his fingers scratching into his mouth and Sam still didn't feel it. Sam didn't feel anything at all, and he wanted to, he needed to because Gabriel finally had to pay attention now. Eighteen years, he'd just wanted Gabriel to fucking look at him besides as a burden or a child or something to be patted on the head and ignored. It was about time Gabriel acknowledged Sam as a human but he looked weak and panicky and Sam couldn't feel any of it.

A pinkie finger slipped into the crease of his eye and Sam was snapped back to the moment. He roared and jerked his face to the side, his eye still stinging with the phantom, salt residue of Gabriel's fingertips. The taste lingered at the corners of his mouth.

"Shut up" Sam cried, "You filthy, pervert _faggot_ asshole you ruined everything. Shut up,"

It was only Sam's voice echoing in the walls back at him. Sam hauled a hand back and hit Gabriel on the side of the face, just to remind him who was in charge here. Though Sam wasn't quite sure what to do with his power, he just knew he needed more of it.

Gabriel didn't yell out, only exhaled a long, shaky breath and squeezed his eyes shut.

"I'm sorry." Sam muttered, "I'm sorry but you weren't listening."

The side of Gabriel's face was swelling and turning pink.

"Would you listen to you?" Gabriel spat. He wasn't begging anymore. His lip curled into a familiar sneer as he looked up at Sam's form. "Does this make you feel good? Are you a big strong man now that your daddy's dead and you can fuck whoever you're bigger than?"

Sam hit Gabriel on the side of the face again and Gabriel turned as far into the pillow as he could. Sam wasn't apologizing this time.

"Fuck you for bringing up my dead father. You ass. You fucking ass. You fucking took my innocence. My childhood. My family from me and I'm here, in your lap and you're calling me a rapist? You gay piece of shit. You weren't complaining when I jerked your cock last night. You're such a filthy whore, Gabriel. You're a whore 'cause you don't stand for anything you'll just give it up for some washed out musician on tour. Don't care who you hurt 'cause you don't have any morals. Fucking slut. Willing to give it up to me in a parking garage. Can't have been easy for poor, filthy, whore Gabriel to get fucked, could it have? On the road with some two-bit country star. You made Dean a sex symbol when he was fifteen. Put him in lip gloss, I fucking remember you whoring him out."

"You're mixing your analogies, Sammy-kins. Am I a whore or a pimp?"

Sam lunged into Gabriel again, his hand landing over Gabriel's chest, as his hips crashed into Gabriel's vulnerably parted thighs. Gabriel cried out at that, pain and shock in a gush of consonants and once again, Sam felt the power of his position, his size, his control run through his body like the most delicious wine. But better, because it didn't dull him, it made him stronger and faster and smarter. Sam was good at control.

He rocked his hips again and Gabriel turned his head as far as he could into the pillow to get away.

"My whole life, you wanted them. My Dad. You know it's rape if he couldn't consent. Maybe he never sucked your cock, but you dragged him on stage. Made him preform her song, get all naked for them so you could get a check. And he was always drunk, you wouldn't even let him drive but you put him on stage. He could barely consent. What about Dean, huh? You brainwashed him, made him think he needed you and wanted you. Unbuttoned his shirt three holes. Made him pucker up his lips because you knew what people would think, what they'd want when they saw that. Sick. You're a sicko. Perverted, pedophile piece of shit.

"You ever think of that? My brother's glossy lips? He was fifteen. Is that when you thought about fucking him? Dean's so eager to please, you'd just have to remind him that you paid for dinner and he'd get on his knees if he thought he owed you. You're disgusting."

Sam rocked his hips again. Then again, faster, owning Gabriel like this. Humiliating him like he had humiliated Sam. This wasn't rape, it was fair play. Finally, Gabriel made a noise, escaping from the pillow like it was locked up. It was a whimper. Pathetic.

Sam reached between his legs, ready to grab Gabriel's manhood in his hands like a toy when he felt a shape to the flesh. Gabriel was half hard.

"Are you _kidding_?" Sam choked out a surprised laugh, "You're hard right now? You're getting off on this."

Sam gabbed a handful of hair and pulled so Gabriel had to pull his head out from the pillow to look up at him, eyes glazed over like he was thinking of someplace else.

And that didn't count. Gabriel needed to take the brunt of Sam's wrath 'cause he had started it in the first place. Sam stroked Gabriel through his jeans and Gabriel whimpered again, like it hurt. But Sam knew from experience that Gabriel couldn't feel things like hurt. It was another trick.

"Dean? My brother, Dean? That who you get all hot and heavy for? That's who makes you cream yourself? You're disgusting."

"No, it wasn't Dean. Never Dean. Never like that. Please, just stop talking. Do what you need to but just stop... just stop saying things like that. I'm going to be sick."

"Whatever I need to do? Oh, please, Gabriel, who are you kidding?" Sam stoked Gabriel's cock again, "You're the gay one, you think I get off on this. You're so pathetic, such a _slut_ , so desperate for it. Don't you see that you disgust me? Perving over my brother?" Gabriel shook his head again. "Or maybe... or maybe it wasn't Dean at all. Did you ever want me, Gabriel? The baby of the family? That what gets you going?"

"Please, stop."

"That's not a no."

Sam unzipped Gabriel's pants now. It was a familiar movement, he'd done it before. Gabriel had stopped trying to push him off, just laid out on the mattress and waited for it to be over. Gave up the fight before Sam even got to drag it out into a full brawl. Gabriel's cock looked weak and ineffective, jutting out from his wrinkled jeans and zip-up hoodie. There were wet tear tracks along his face, his eyes were squeezed shut.

Sam looked away from his face because it made all the blood in his body feel the bad kind of tingly, like when a bird flew into his window or when he walked past a homeless person on the street. Or like when he thought of his father, tucked away in the dark and in a box underground, where he would only get left behind.

It was distracting him from the bigger picture.

Gabriel's cock was still as disappointingly human as it was in his car. Responsive to Sam's touch as before. The sound of flesh on flesh, that dirty rubbing noises filling the spaces between the walls.

"So, how old was I when you first wanted to corner me in your motel room and molest me? Was I still carrying around that teddy bear? Still rolling up the legs on Dean's hand-me-down jeans? Tell me, Gabriel, I want to know."

"I'm going to be sick." Gabriel begged.

" _You're_ going to be sick? What about me? I'm the one who was the object of someone's sexual fantasy when I was eight."

"You weren't eight." Gabriel spat out and Sam actually stopped stroking for a moment. Gabriel looked mortified that it slipped and took his hands, which had been free but limp and defeated by his sides, and covered his face. He kept wanting to do that, gyp Sam out of the full effect.

"Go on." Sam whispered. Gabriel shook his head so Sam jerked his cock, his grip intentionally too harsh and tight. "Go. On."

"You were... you were seventeen." Gabriel muttered. Sam dragged his hands away from his face but Gabriel just looked up at the ceiling instead. "It wasn't... it wasn't like that. You were just... I saw you... you'd left the window open on your motel and I was looking for Dean and I passed it and... you were..." Gabriel petered off so Sam sped up his jerking, softer now, making it good, like a reward, "Touching yourself."

"And you wanted to go in there, spread my legs and fuck me until I screamed?"

" _No!_ No." Gabriel whined as Sam worked him faster. His legs curled in the sheets, tensing and releasing, climbing to the orgasm Gabriel was trying defiantly to escape, "You just seemed so sad and lonely and I thought—gah—I thought maybe I could make it better, we can make it better together. I didn't think of... fucking... just..." Gabriel's back was tensing, the veins in his neck popping out. Gabriel had never made a face like that before. Sam wanted to see it now. "Stop. Stop, please, don't make me-"

"You want to come, Gabriel. I already know you're a sick pervert, watching kids beat off and getting hard over it."

Gabriel came with a sob, spurting over Sam's fist with stripes that were far hotter than Sam anticipated. He'd only felt his own come before. He was surprised that Gabriel was made of the same stuff.

He shoved his fist into Gabriel's face.

"Lick it off." He demanded and, this time, without taking his eyes from Sam, Gabriel obeyed and let Sam shove his fingers into Gabriel's mouth, wipe Gabriel's come off on the insides of his cheeks, knocking the sides of his teeth. "Filthy, filthy sick pervert. It's not rape, Gabriel. I'm not even hard and you came. What's that look like to you?"

"Like you're too drunk to get it up." Gabriel said flatly, without any bite. It was worse than the sneering and the begging.

This sort of defeat that Sam had wanted all along.

He suddenly felt light headed and all the wrong kinds of tingles in his blood. He fell forward onto his stomach, half covering Gabriel's arm and shoulder.

Then Sam passed out.


	4. Chapter 4

Gabriel took steady, measured breaths. Underneath the weight of the drunken giant, there wasn't a whole lot of room for his lungs to breathe.

Sam's pungent breath was blowing into his face and his half hard cock was prodding Gabriel in the thigh as he slept. Someone walked down the hall and went into the room next to Sam's. They turned on the TV and the room was filled with the muffled sounds of sitcom studio laughter. Cars drove by on the street, a dog barked from somewhere far away and Gabriel had just been raped.

Gabriel had one talent, one magic power that set him apart from the rest. He was amazingly adept at removing a thought from his mind. He could just, choose not to think about something and his brain would find a detour around it. He could ignore it. Gabriel was really, really good at ignoring it.

And so, he didn't think about how his knees were weak. He didn't think about how sore his eyes were, how tender his cock was, having been stripped so rough and dry. He just cut along the dotted line. Amputated that part of his brain for the time being.

Sam's eyelids started to flutter and Gabriel figured this was as good a chance as any. Gingerly, he began to ease his weight from Sam's clingy spider limbs. It took a few tries, as Sam was very heavy and once Gabriel had made any progress with the arms, the legs and the hips would latch on like a sloth to a tree.

Gabriel stood, finally, tucking his raw cock back into his pants with a wince.

He glanced back over at Sam before he left.

He didn't look like a kid anymore. Gabriel wouldn't have recognized him; all sprawled out and undignified, sleeping a gross, selfish slumber.

Gabriel pitied him all the same.

***

Gabriel had never really fit in.

He realized that he was an atheist when he was seven years old. His older brother, Michael, was leading a youth church service and Gabriel was in his group.

Michael was sixteen and beautiful, even Gabriel could admit that. He knew, for a fact, that Michael had never picked up his dirty underwear in his life and wiped his tacky orange Cheetos dust fingers on the sofa when he watched TV, but he could admit that, to the outside world, Michael was beautiful. He was tall and strong, captain of the lacrosse and the soccer teams, volunteered with the church on the weekends and worked part time at the grocery store during the week. Everyone knew that the Novaks had a dead-beat dad and people turned into putty when Michael smiled at them and said 'sir' or 'm'am" just as Tennessee southern and polite as you please.

Everyone loved Michael. Michael loved everyone. And, to avoid being accused of playing favorites, Michael pretended to not be his brother in the church youth group. Michael pretended Gabriel was just another kid, and when no one would play with him and when he sat alone to eat lunch, well, Michael just pretended he didn't see. His big brother was very fair like that.

It was the end of the day and Michael sat everyone in a group to ask them what they would say to God if they met him. Everyone sat and thought very hard about what they'd want to say to their heavenly father but Gabriel panicked because he suddenly realized that he was going to have to lie.

Whatever that thing was, inside of Michael, burning so bright and so trustingly full of faith... Gabriel didn't have it. Maybe he'd never had it. Michael said that God's love came from within, it was a fire in your soul that took you above them, above everything. Michael said that God's love was everything, and existed in everyone.

But Gabriel knew for certain that there wasn't anything inside him besides him. No heavenly love, no divine purpose. Just plain old Gabriel. But he couldn't just _say_ that. Not with everyone looking.

It was the biggest lie Gabriel had ever told and he had been seven.

Gabriel's childhood hadn't been anything really worth waxing sentimental over. As the youngest of four, he spent most of his younger years following the group, tripping over jeans that had to be rolled up twice at the ankle and shouting, 'Hey, wait up. Wait for me.'

His brothers weren't the worst assholes. Sometimes they did.

School wasn't much different than church group. The Novaks were the poor kids in school, everyone knew that. Gabriel got the worst of it, he reckoned, with four brothers worth of hand-me-downs and goodwill bargains to make up the difference. Gabriel became accustomed to never having anything that fit properly until he was at least twenty.

No one picked on him, not really. It probably wouldn't have been very satisfying if they did. Gabriel was runty and poor. No one felt like they needed to take him down a peg.

When Gabriel was eleven he came out of the closet to his family, to which everyone responded with; "Yeah, we kind of figured."

It was the one interesting thing Gabriel had in all the din of four teenage boys with a single working mom; the one thing that made him special in his brother's clothes with his brother's toys and them talking over his head. That was the one thing that Gabriel had for himself and everyone already knew and had gotten over it. It could have been worse. There were certainly people who'd had it worse but Gabriel still felt a little something break inside him a the fact that no one seemed to care. They cared when Luc was arrested with all those drugs. They cared when Raphael wrecked the family car. They cared when Michael finished community college. But Gabriel was gay and nobody really even noticed.

But at least he could pretend that he felt victimized in church where a small but vocal minority of the congregation had many opinions on the appropriate places a man could rest his dick. His mom sighed and shrugged, saying he didn't have to go if he didn't want to. So, on Sundays, when the other Novaks would pile into the car and head to church, Gabriel got to watch cartoons without anyone telling him they were stupid and eat PopTarts without having a big brother swoop in and take his second one.

Middle school was rough, but only because he was openly gay and boys made a thing out of it in the locker rooms during gym. So Gabriel changed in the bathroom stalls and ignored the cat calls. Just like his brother, coach didn't believe in playing favorites to the fairy so he pretended he didn't notice when boys would grab their cocks and ask Gabriel if he wanted a taste. 'Hey, fag boy, I'll let you suck my dick if you ask nice.' Gabriel pretended he didn't notice either.

No one laid a finger on him, though, even after all the taunting and the staring. Gabriel supposed that three big brothers protected him from most violent backlash. Gabriel liked to think he'd be able to hold his own if it did come to it; he learned everything he knew from his second oldest brother, Luc, and Luc fought dirty but he always won.

But the name of the game in adolescence is keeping your head down, so Gabriel did. By high school, he discovered weed and the burn-out kids who were almost always game to try anything once. He kissed girls, he kissed boys, he gave his first blow-job in the backseat of Zeke's car parked behind the pizza place where Zeke was a delivery driver.

He and his friend both smoked a bowl and Ezekiel raised his hips off the car seat and raised an eyebrow. Gabriel didn't have anything better to do that night and he certainly wasn't waiting for some big strong man to come and save him from his life in high school. Even at fifteen, Gabriel figured that fairytale love probably wasn't for him.

Zeke and Anna and all his friends had crushes and boyfriends and girlfriends and all these feelings inside of them that took them above, over everything. A fire inside of them, this sort of all or nothing faith inside their souls.

But Gabriel knew that it was just him inside there. No divine purpose, no other person that he might complete. He was just Gabriel.

But he was horny. And stoned. And in this light, he couldn't even see how bad Zeke's acne was or recognize Anna's bobby pins in the seat cushions where he rested his knees as he went down on him.

Zeke ran his hands through Gabriel's hair. He stroked his thumb along his chin, over his lip, down his neck. It was kind of like making love, except Zeke kept saying 'holy fuck' and ended by asking Gabriel not to tell Anna.

Gabriel really didn't care.

It was probably one of those things; more proof that he was a broken person, missing something fundamental inside of him that was supposed to make him feel something when Zeke took Anna to prom. When Anna got pregnant. When they had babies and fell in love and bought a house and got a dog. There was supposed to be something there. Something that wanted that for himself. Love was supposed to make him better, make him want more.

He graduated high school, barely. He was stoned at graduation, and he thought you could tell by the way he looked in the picture on his mother's mantel. Anna and Zeke were falling over each other, Anna's long red hair like some sort of beacon in the sea of black gowns. Zeke had gotten too excited about the part where he would get to throw his hat and so he was already bareheaded, both arms around Anna's waist as she jokingly tried to untangle them. She was mid laugh as the camera clicked. She was very beautiful, Gabriel was as gay as Liberace, but even he had never wondered why Zeke had always been so in love with her. He was so hopeful and she was so teary, hugging Gabriel and crying and forcing him to promise that they were still going to always be friends.

But Gabriel didn't care. And it was, actually, pretty fucked up. Gabriel couldn't fall in love, that much was clear. Gabriel couldn't have friends, either. Maybe some sort of divine punishment; making him live a life of rotting mediocrity. His penance for lying when he was seven years old and not telling anyone that he was born wrong. They had accepted everything from him, all the way down to his little gay self but he knew they'd be horrified to learn that he missed out on that fire of God's love in his heart.

Gabriel was on his own.

And he did, wish, with aggressive fervor that he could believe in God. Faith looked so easy and infinitely rewarding. Who wouldn't want to believe that someone loved them unconditionally? Who wouldn't want to know that there was someone, somewhere, who knew every thought and still had a plan? It seemed nice, to them it seemed easy. 'Giving themselves to Jesus' it was the simplest request anyone could ask. But things that were easy for everyone else was almost always impossible for Gabriel to manage.

He got over it. There wasn't much of an alternative anyway.

Gabriel was no good at school when Anna wasn't around to copy off of. She went to Smith and Zeke got a solid job at an iron shop in Knoxville. They were still going steady. Anna said that Zeke might be 'the one' in one of those postcards she sent. She did that, for a while at least. Gabriel never responded.

Gabriel hung around his mother's house. She had a hacking cough, earned from a lifetime of cigarettes smoked in the diners and bars where she worked before anyone told her they'd ruin her life. Gabriel made her hot tea and watched her shows with her on her days off. She didn't ask him to move out and spared him the judgmental grumbles of three older brothers who thought it was about time he got a real damn job. Honestly, he didn't think she wanted him to leave. Their tiny, cracker box duplex was so clean and quiet now that her rambunctious boys were off being men somewhere. Gabriel thought it was much nicer but the quiet made her anxious.

He got a job working twice a week at the record store. He ended up spending his entire paycheck on eight tracks and records, devoting his shift browsing the aisles and avoiding eye contact with customers, lest they make him actually work. The only reason that Gabriel hadn't been fired thus far was that the perpetually high owner liked to hover over Gabriel's shoulder at closing and mutter filthy things into his ear.

"If a woman wore jeans that tight," Balthazar drawled, british and smoke husky voice sounding so exotic that Gabriel's heart raced. He stood behind the counter, adding up the till and watching Gabriel sweep between dirty blonde lashes. Balthazar had always leered, before. But Gabriel had pretended he didn't notice. "If a woman wore those... why, they'd be tarring and feathering me for sexual harassment."

"You haven't said anything." Gabriel said, holding the broom and looking over his shoulder at Balthazar. It was a good feeling, like hot water being spilled down his veins. It felt like power. It felt like being special. Maybe not a fire, but certainly a flicker of a spark in his gut.

He let Balthazar look his fill, this time unashamed.

"Oh, but the thoughts." Balthazar murmured, "A man could go to jail for thoughts like that."

Gabriel blinked. Balthazar licked his lips and went back to the till.

Balthazar got bolder as Gabriel didn't spurn his attentions, "You make a man want to bend you over," Balthazar would murmur, palming himself behind the counter, "You make a man want to get on his knees."

Gabriel was the first to touch, break that electric fence line that Balthazar had placed there for his own protection. He came up behind Gabriel, leaned in to murmur something about how he wanted to hold Gabriel's ass in his hands when Gabriel leaned into him, let his back mould to Balthazar's chest, let his ass press into Balthazar's crotch.

"Jesus fuck," Balthazar murmured before turning Gabriel and pressing him against the shelves, holding him in place as he kissed the ever loving fuck out of him. Gabriel groaned, spread his legs and let Balthazar fuck against him, fast and shallow and greedy, his hand cupping the back of Gabriel's head, keeping him close.

Gabriel got fucked for the first time that weekend, in Balthazar's apartment, quiet so the neighbors wouldn't hear. The air smelt stale and Balthazar's hands were sweating. The whole time Gabriel laid on his back, he watched Balthazar. It was kind of beautiful, a whole gauntlet of feelings that Gabriel was supposed to be having.

Balthazar kept murmuring how he couldn't believe it was happening, how he'd wanted it for so long. Balthazar touched his face, sucked his lip, slid his fingers into him, so slowly, so, frustratingly, slowly. Balthazar called him beautiful. Balthazar said he could fall for him.

And Gabriel didn't feel any of it at all. He still got off, though.

It actually went on for a while. Him and Balthazar. Gabriel hadn't really meant anything by it. First it was just groping in the back room a few times a week. Then sex. Then all that stuff right before and right after the sex started to sort of look like something. Like a really good friendship. Like love, maybe, if Gabriel was even capable of that.

They started getting stoned before. And they started getting pizza after. Balthazar would talk. Sometimes it was about nothing. Work stuff. Boring stuff. Stuff they might talk about even if Gabriel hadn't had his face in Balthazar's crotch or even if Balthazar hadn't rolled over on his stomach and pushed his ass up, offering.

Sometimes Balthazar would talk about where he grew up. He'd talk about his French father and he'd talk about summers in the countryside. He had more interesting things to talk about than Gabriel did, but he always wanted to listen to what he had to say anyway. It was baffling. But kind of nice. Being doted on, being held and treasured. Being someone besides the littlest one in the ill fitting clothes, calling for his brothers to wait up.

After a couple of months, Balthazar said he loved him. Gabriel said it back, because maybe he did. How was Gabriel supposed to know what that would feel like? He already knew he was missing something; didn't have that fire inside him. God didn't love him, or maybe he didn't love God, so he knew he couldn't love Balthazar like he was supposed to. He obviously didn't love Balthazar as much as Balthazar loved him.

But how the Hell was he supposed to know what to wait for, if he was going to wait for anything at all? It all looked right.

His mother loved Balthazar, almost as much as he loved her. His parents were still in Europe and so he fawned all over her and her tea cozies and her soap operas. For her birthday he managed to get her tickets to see the Mary and John Winchester when they came into Nashville. His mother had loved the Campbells, the nice, clean family band from Gabriel's childhood. They were all so very blonde and Christian, there were entire records they couldn't play anymore because of the deep wear on the tracks. Her favorite song had always been "Angels Watching Over You and I." It was thoughtful for Balthazar to remember.

Gabriel had never been a passionate individual. In fact, probably his most defining characteristic was his complete distaste for just about everything. He hated working. He hated being bored. He thought most movies were stupid but had never finished a book in his life. Gabriel sort of tumbled through life, sticking his nose up at all the things his brothers excelled at, just to have them move out and move and realize there wasn't much else left. Even in this, he was left with whatever his brothers didn't use up first. Besides their mother, he didn't love anything the way they did.

But he did like music.

And so Balthazar took them to the show, disappearing for a few minutes with a wink. When he came back he led Gabriel's mother to the backstage to meet the band. It was thoughtful and kind and so, very appropriate. He looked at Gabriel over his mother's head and there was something there. Something beautiful and bright, faithful and trusting.

In that moment, Balthazar was giving Gabriel something. Everything. It was ferocious and relentless. It was love, the kind of love people had in movies and books. It was the kind of love that people went to war for, the kind of love that everyone else was capable of, burning inside him.

And Gabriel realized, once again, that he was going to have to lie. His whole life with Balthazar. Pretend he had something inside of himself to offer, because Balthazar was just handing him everything on a platter and Gabriel felt none of it at all.

He slipped away as they waited in the hallway by the food table, hoping for Mary or John to walk by. Preferably at the same time. Gabriel's mother always liked the way they looked together. Him so tall and dark while she was so small and light. Like a couple from a fairy tale. It always bummed him out that she said things like that. His Dad was no prince and it seemed to be the only thing she wanted for herself. Gabriel pretended he needed to pee and left them there.

There was a tall black man who seemed to know what he was doing. He barked orders at a man not much older than Gabriel and already too drunk to work. Gabriel saw an opportunity.

"Ought to fucking fire you. It's ten at night and you're already plastered. Where the fuck did your incompetent ass leave the patch chord?"

The drunk man mumbled something indignantly and the older guy grunted. Shaking his head and listing a thousand insults under his breath. "Would fire you if anyone else was stupid enough to want your job."

"I do." Gabriel interrupted. They both looked over at him. "I'll take his job. I can find a patch chord."

"They go on in forty minutes."

"I can do it."

"What's your name, kid?"

"Gabriel."

"You ain't gonna magically produce a chord in forty minutes, Gabriel."

"Yes I can. I can do it."

"Fine. Name's Rufus. Find me when you get the chord."

"And then you'll give me the job?"

"Sure, kid. Why the fuck not." he grumbled doubtfully, turning away and shaking his head. Rufus headed back toward the stage and Gabriel made a mad dash for Balthazar's car. The music store owner had to have a cable, somewhere. Gabriel returned, sweaty and messy from literally climbing into the trunk of a Pinto but he held the chord tightly in his fist like a trophy.

Rufus laughed and called him a crazy little fucker.

Gabriel took it, and he took the job too.

His mother cried but didn't ask him to stay. She packed him a lunch to take on the road and told him to call from wherever they stopped for the night. He almost cried too, when she grabbed him around the middle. He had always been her soft boy. The sweet one. The one that hung around instead of jumping from the nest at the first go. He was her last boy. She was his only mom. He didn't love much in this world, but Gabriel had really loved her.

Balthazar was sweet. Not mad at all, which he probably should have been.

They had dinner and sex the night before he left, and they had managed to go the whole time without talking about it; not admitting the truth that the one thing Balthazar wanted from him, Gabriel would never be able to give.

Balthazar pulled Gabriel into his chest, murmuring, "You could really break a man's heart."

***

Gabriel didn't pass anyone in the halls, to his massive relief, sure that he'd look terrified or ruined or broken. Sure, he had the magic ability to just remove giant chunks of horrible from his brain but there hadn't even been time to heal over it yet. It was just a gaping hole now. It would get better. Fade with time.

He got to his own room and thought about showering. Washing it all off of him, Sam's stupid drunken breaths. His stupid weight. His stupid words which had been worse than anything else. Gabriel took a bottle of whiskey from the mini bar. For once, ever, Dean could pick up the slack and pay the stupid, impossible mark-up. After all these years of Gabriel cracking the whip over everyone's head about pinching pennies and saving the band's money... well, tonight wouldn't matter so much in the long run.

Oh, Dean. That made it harder.

Whiskey first, shower later. Whiskey first, letter second. Because Gabriel could forget a lot of things but not if he kept hearing them. Not if he kept seeing them. Because, and the fucked up part was, there was something to the things Sam said, some truth in there that Gabriel had only heard inside his own head. It was like a razor to know that Sam had seen through it all along.

 _Dear Dean_ , he started on hotel stationary, too white and clean with a little Hilton logo at the bottom. His hand shook, so he drank a little more whiskey. It was nice. The hot burn of it in the back of his throat. It was nice to feel something.

 _Dean_ , he tried again.

_I have been privileged to work with you for all these years. I've seen you grow up and your father was so proud of you. I'm so proud._

Gabriel had to pause again and take a breath. It was harder than he thought. It was harder than he had ever expected it to be.

_You're a good man, now. And I think it's time for you to seek other management while I..._

Gabriel crossed it out. Too sappy. Too sentimental. Too hard to think of a life doing something else. To be honest, he didn't know if he had anything else.

Another shot of whiskey. Another thought that he cut along the dotted line and just removed from his memory. He had to remind himself, that he was good at that. That might have been the only thing he was ever actually good at.

_Dean,_

_While I have been honored to work with you and your father, I'm afraid I must ask you to find other representation. I think you will do well, no matter who you work with. I'm afraid I can't stay on for the funeral, but you and your brother will manage._

_Good luck, Deano. You were always great._

_Gabriel Novak._


	5. Chapter 5

“Get up.” barked a harsh voice.  


Sam blinked through the early light and the effects of his new and exciting hangover. This being prodded awake was becoming a bad habit. He rolled over, trying to find the clock when a hard hand shoved his shoulder, knocking him back onto his back.  


Sam squinted and found himself looking up at his brother. Big, fully dressed and pissed as hell.  


“What time is it?”  


“Time for you to get up.” Dean said. He crossed his arms over his chest, watching as Sam pulled himself into a sitting position.  


There was bile in his mouth, with alcohol and a gross smell about his clothes which he had clearly slept in. The fuck had he done night before?  


“Sam.” Dean growled again, in warning.  


“What? I'm up? What do you want?”  


“That's all you've got to fucking say?”  


“Dean, I don't feel well.” Sam mumbled, “Can we talk about this later?”  


“No” Dean said. And when Sam only rubbed his eyes, his brother reached out and clapped the back of his head with his open hand. “You're drunk. You're a fucking... a fucking... train wreck.”  


“Yeah, obviously.” Sam scratched the undergrowth on his chin, thinking about the dryness in his own mouth. He felt like he was dying.  


“Never thought you'd be worse than Dad was.”  


Sam looked up at that, sure he hadn't heard right.  


“Dean?”  


“I'm not...” Dean eyes watered. His brother bit his lip and looked over Sam's head to the wall behind him. “I'm not going through this again. You know, Dad was never _bitter,_ Sam. Dad was grumpy and he was distracted and he was distant but he was never _bitter_ and _cruel_. You're fucking _mean_ , when you're hurt and you're just _always_ hurt, no matter what I do. So, get out. I'm not supporting you while you rip apart the people around you.”  


“I have no idea what you're talking about.”  


“GABRIEL.” Dean hissed, “I'm talking about Gabriel and how he quit this morning. He slipped a letter of resignation under my door last night and now he's gone. He isn't answering his phone, he is just gone and, you know, he was a solid guy. He ever flaked. He never left us hanging. After all the shit with Mom and Dad, it was _you_ that sent him packing.”  


“Wait, what did he say?” Sam had a bad feeling, building in the pit of his stomach, like he had crossed a line the night before. He had this feeling of Gabriel, this tension in his gut that only happened when the manager was nearby.  


“I have no idea why that poor guy got stuck on your radar. Why you decided that every terrible thing that had happened was because of him. It was like you couldn't pin all your hate on Dad. There was too much mean in you to put on him so you gave the rest to some poor bastard who was standing too close. Gabriel was my family. He was my family when you were weren't. He was my biggest supporter when... when...”  


Dean took a deep breath, bracing himself.  


“Cas is my boyfriend.”  


Sam blinked at him.  


“Cas and I... we love each other. We sleep together. He's the love of my life and Gabriel was the one who figured it out before we did. Helped me a lot when I was confused. Shockingly, Sam, he wasn't some asshole monster hell bent on ruining your life. He looked out for us. For all of us. He was on our side the whole time.”  


“What did he say?” Sam asked.  


“Sam, are you missing the point?” Dean turned to him, “I'm gay.”  


“Yeah.”  


“You don't have anything to say about that?”  


“Was it a secret?” Sam asked, “I'm happy for you and Cas. You're getting laid. Congrats. But what did Gabriel _say_?”  
Dean furrowed his brow at him, mouth opening as he tried the words. Sam was already short tempered with the hangover and the emotional drain and the fact that, for the fucking life of him, he had no idea what happened the night before, but he was pretty sure is was the worst thing he'd ever done. And he'd been doing some pretty messed up shit lately.  


“Cas and I...”  


“I vanished for ten years. And I'm sorry about that. I didn't come back here thinking you'd just open up to me. I was going to wait for you to say it out loud. Gabriel told me, but he didn't have to because I have eyes and ears and I know you, Dean.” Dean licked his lip and looked down at the floor between them, “Please, Dean. You gotta tell me what Gabriel said. I need to know if I--”  


“I'll tell you what you did.” Dean snapped, his eyes meeting Sam's. They were blank. Dean had never seen them like that before. Not high, not drunk, but how they were now, glazed over, resigned. “You made the hotel management call me at three in the morning. These walls? Not sound proof. And the people,” Dean pointed to the wall behind Sam, the one the bed was crowded up against, “In there? Called to complain. Talked about calling the cops. They heard you. Heard everything you said, or at least the gist of it. And, see, usually complaints go through Gabriel. That's part of his job, managing us but also the people we interact with. He takes care of restaurant bills and gas station stops and, you know, complaints about loud and disorderly conduct in hotels. Management couldn't reach him on his cell. Couldn't get him through his room so they called me. And when I woke up to head down there, I found his letter. He called me Dean-o and he only asked for a good word for his next position. Not even a severance package. Not even the money to keep quiet like Bobby thinks we should be offering your neighbors. See, they heard yelling. And then they heard a few words above the others.”  
Sam swallowed.  


“Those words were 'filthy' and 'pervert' and 'faggot' loud and clear so no one was mistaken.” Dean said, Sam put his face in his hands, “And you wonder why I was surprised? When I told you about me and Cas? That was some real Westboro shit you were spewing. Never thought homophobia would be your thing.”  


“Dean, I swear, I am not like that. You know me. _You know me._ ”  


Dean's eyes were filling now, and he wiped them away stubbornly. The next words were tight. He had to say them quickly.  


“You see how that's worse, right?”  


“Dean...”  


“No. No. It's worse. It's worse. 'Cause now it means... now it means that you're mean _just because_.” Dean bit his lip again, his hands braced on the dresser at his sides, unable to hold Sam's eyes for more than a minute, “I think I always knew, too. That you had this... in you. I mean, we tried, Sam. We were always trying to make it as good as we could make it for you. Dad tried to teach you guitar. I tried to be your friend... you pushed us all away, it was never enough. We were never enough and I used to fucking _lose sleep_ at night, think _I_ was the poison one. You said you were lonely and we were supposed to be best friends, so I thought I was the one who fucked it all up. But... but it's _you_. You're... you're vicious.”  


“Dean, no.” Sam said, his eyes getting hot, “Dean, please, stop saying that. It wasn't me it was this whole fucking life ok? Dad tried to teach me guitar but it wasn't what _I_ wanted--”  


“It was what we had!”  


“Well, I wanted--”  


“You wanted someone else. You wanted a different family. You wanted a different life and I'm sorry this is what you got, Sam, but you never even tried to make the best of it. We weren't good enough for you, so you just got mad at the world.  


“I love you Sam,” Dean said, his face a gross slash of mouth and freckles with little wrinkles he had gotten while Sam was away, trying to build the life he wanted but still feeling... the same. No matter where Sam went, he always just ended up feeling the _same_ “I love you, but I'm different now. I'm with Cas. And he says... he says a lot of shit. He says I'm good and I'm pure and I'm clean and I never felt like that before. I don't always feel that way, but I need to be that because I can't let Cas down. Not after all he's been through with me. I used to try to be this person for you, then I was this person for Dad and... it's different with Cas. I'm not trying to be someone else, he loves _me_ and I want to be myself for him. I can't... I can't do that when you're saying things like that out of some misplaced hatred for your life or yourself or whatever the Hell this thing in you is.  


“So I need you to go. Come to the burial but you can't stay with me. I won't pay for your room any more. I'm thirty, Sam. I'm thirty and I can't be what you want. I can't be what I'm not.”  


“Dean, don't... don't say that.”  


“No. I need to.” Dean said, but tears were streaming down his face. Sam realized he'd never seen Dean cry like that. Not as kids. Not even when Sam left on his own, but now he was a mess. A hard line of unmoving shoulders, a defensive posture and a fucking dam of tears breaking loose.  


Sam hadn't realized that Dean could hurt like that. Sam had only ever gotten far enough to watch other people hurt him, it was startling to see that it went both ways.  


“Dean.” Sam said, his own voice gross and wet without his permission, “Dean, I'm sorry.”  


Dean faltered for a moment, “That's not enough. Cas thinks... _we_ think you need help. And... I tried to help Dad. My whole fucking life I tried to make things easier for him. But it was never enough, he was never happy and so then I wasn't happy either. I can't do it twice, Sam. That can't be all that there is to my story, so... so I'll pay for a rehab... or a, a therapist, or a... I don't know Dalai Llama but I'm not going to let you sit here and be like this. I can't watch you implode, Sammy. I can't do it twice.  


“You been telling me this whole time that I needed to stand up for myself. So. So that's what I'm doing.”  


“Dean--”  


“I can't, Sam.”  


"You're right." Sam said softly.  


"What?"  


“Ok.” Sam said, wiping his eyes and then throwing his hands up in a gesture of surrender, “Ok. I'm going.”  


“Where are you going?” Dean asked, seeming childish and needy now that Sam relented so easily.  


“Not sure yet.”  


“Ok, well, you'll call me when you get there, right?”  


“Sure.” Sam said softly.  


“Don't hate me, Sam.” Dean pleaded. "I can't watch you self-destruct but I can't .. I _can't_ know that you hate me."  


“I don't.” Sam murmured, standing, now, because he would have to pack and things. He'd have to figure things out, now. Dean looked so strong, now. Nothing like their father. John always looked like he was waiting for the world to slug him one. Always braced for the punch, always expecting the world to give him its worst. But Dean looked, brave. He looked like he saw the fucking light and knew how to stand his ground. Dean had a reason to stand his ground. He must have gotten that from their mother. “I'm so proud of you, Dean.” Sam whispered.  


“Ok, Sam?”  


“Ok, Dean.”

***

Sam did have some money. He'd had a little bit saved up from his job. And, the money that he owed for the rent he'd planned on paying Jess was suddenly his to do what he'd wanted with. Sam didn't need Dean or Gabriel bankrolling him to survive.  


It had certainly helped, though.  


Sam decided he didn't want to stay in Dallas, so he bought a car. He just didn't know where he was going to drive it.  


It might have been the hangover talking; nothing makes a man want to change the way he lives quite like throwing up a bottle of bourbon and feeling his brain beat against the walls of his skull relentlessly. Vowing to be a better man is easy when you're leaning over the toilet.  


Sam needed to clear his head, so he hit the road. He'd never had anything more familiar than the trailer on tour, but the windows, the country, the world right next to him, keeping him company. It felt familiar, at least. He could see why his Dad had done this, sort of. It was warped and cowardly and the least responsible thing Sam could think of, but it was nice to see the road again, stretched out, long and unending. It gave a man clarity. Maybe his whole life, his Dad had really just been trying to clear his mind.  


He drove until he ran out of gas. He got some bottled water and a hot dog at a gas station as he filled up his Dodge four door. The postcards at the truck stop told him he was in Arkansas. Sam didn't even really notice that'd he'd been traveling east.  


He sent Dean a picture of a nudie girl on a keychain, with Little Rock written across her ass cheeks, then hit the road again.  


The thing about Sam's childhood was that he'd never had direction that he had chosen. It was always Gabriel who had picked the shows, Gabriel who decided when to get into the car and Gabriel who chose the routes they went on. Sam's choices were limited to the kinds of candy he ate at the sticky, sun bleached tables of truck stops and the kinds of books he grabbed from the discount bins by the checkout.  


Somedays were good days. They actually went to Disneyland, once. Dean had taken him, Dad was doing a show that day. It wasn't what it was supposed to be: Sam could see that in the harried mothers herding their children . He saw it in the kids wailing about not getting a toy. Occasionally they'd pass a father with a sleeping child slung over their shoulder. They'd see a group of kids laughing together. _Friends_. Was the word his mind supplied but it might have been a word in French for all Sam's understanding of it.  


Dean never let him dwell too long. He'd flick his arm and say something annoying and embarrassing and Dean-like, _'Bet you I can throw this gum onto the tracks,' he'd say. _'What do you reckon, Sammy? I bet those guys in those costumes are all smelly and covered in boils under there. Couldn't get a different job'__  


There were good days, unpredictably scattered through the rest. And yet, Sam hated them all. A whole childhood, his only childhood, and he wished he could forget the whole thing. Dean was so good at waiting for the good times, soaking them up like a sponge and carrying him through his life, rolling with it. For Dean, there was Disneyland and the rest was just the stuff in between; the world was sunshine with a few shadows in between. Sam was like his opposite, only able to see the good days pin pricks of light in all darkness. And he couldn't control any of it. His life was passing him by and he could only hold on and hope for the best. He hated it, even the parts that he might have loved.  


That wasn't right. He wouldn't choose that for himself.  


Or had he already?  


Sam had learned very early on that comparing himself to Dean was a one way road to misery. Everyone else did it, so he might as well be the only relief he got from it. But... that ability to see the good. To make the best of things. Sam never had that. Maybe, somewhere between eating expired gummy bears and listening to Dad and Dean talk like he wasn't there, he just decided to hate all of it. Something in him, something that was supposed to stay strong and keep perspective snapped and let him fill with this hate. Push everyone away until he was all alone with it, stewing in his own filth.  


Or maybe he was born with it already inside him and it had only been a matter of time.  


He got off the road at the Arkansas border to Mississippi.  


“Dean?” he asked over the phone, “Dean, did Gabriel leave you a forwarding address?”  


“Why?” Dean asked suspiciously, “Why do you want to know?”  


“I just... I just need to know what I did that night. I need to talk to him.”  
The line was silent for a moment. Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and laid back onto the bed. It only gave a loud squeak, and remained hard hard as a rock under his weight.  


“I don't need you to understand. I just need to know how to get in touch with him. I tried calling but his phone goes straight to voicemail.”  


“Sam, I don't know... maybe that's not a good idea. He obviously wanted space. I mean... I mean, getting upset. Leaving on a whim--”  


“Yeah, I know, that's my thing, not his.” Sam said, “And, don't you get it? I need to know what I did. I need to see that he's...ok.”  


“I don't have an address but... hold on.”  


Sam heard Dean's voice, fainter, far away, talking to someone else near him. Sam grabbed a pillow and fluffed it, placing it under his head and willing his mind to catch up with his exhausted body. But there was something nagging at him, keeping him awake. Gabriel's voice, Gabriel's hair, the lines in his face and the shape of his hands.  


Sam was used to thinking about Gabriel. Most of his life had been spent thinking about Gabriel. The sound of his voice waking him up. The wrinkles around his mouth, pulled tight, when he walked with their Dad towards the stage.  


The shape of his hands as they smoothed his hair behind his ear. The way his eyes got big when he was talking to a roadie like they were an idiot.  


There was more than one voice that Sam could hear now, Castiel, no doubt, and it sounded like a fight.  


“What did you want to know?” it was Castiel's voice, now, and it wasn't happy to be there.  


“I'm trying to track down Gabriel.” Sam said before Cas cut him off.  


“He has a cell phone, like every other adult in the United States.” Castiel said coldly, “Try that.”  


“He's not picking up.”  


“Well, sorry, then.” Cas didn't sound sorry. He sounded like he distinctly didn't give a fuck. “But if he didn't leave you a note and he doesn't answer his phone, I'm guessing he doesn't want to talk to you and I'm going to respect his wishes. So. Goodbye.”  


“Wait, Cas!”  


“I'm only staying on the line because Dean will be mad at me if I don't.” Cas said flatly.  


“Ok. Ok, I'll take it.” Sam said hurriedly, “Look, I know you don't have any reason to like me--” Cas snorted, “but you gotta give me this, man. You need to help me out.”  


“John used to say that when he wanted another drink.” Cas said sharply. “We spent ten years 'helping him out' and I, at least, am not so blinded by love for you that I can't learn from that mistake.”  


“I'm not asking for a drink, Cas.”  


“No, you're asking me to give you the address of my cousin who has made it quite clear that he's had enough of you dumping your pity party on anyone who holds still long enough. You're like a cancer that gets under everyone's skin. I'm not enabling you. Good luck in therapy and all that, but I don't have any reason to help you.”  


“I know. I know, you're right, I know.” Sam said, “But, look. Look, I'm not... I'm not happy like this, ok? Dean... Dean is probably the only person I've ever loved unconditionally and even he can't be around me. I've got this... this hate inside me all the time and I don't want to feel like this anymore. I've got this fire in my belly and it's ruining everything. You guys are right. You win. I'm gone. I'll get help, I swear but this thing, it's tainting me. It's tainting everything around me. I need to talk to Gabriel, I need to know what I did that night because otherwise I'll never be clean of it. I need it to purify me. Cas... I'm begging, I'm praying to please let me talk to him.”  


There was silence on the other line.  


“Cas? Are you.. are you still there?”  


“Yes. I'm... thinking.” Cas said. After a moment he continued, “He hasn't been returning my calls either. I suppose. Ok. He is probably at his Mom's in Tennessee, just outside of Nashville.”  


“You'll give me the address?”  


“...Yes...” Cas said reluctantly.  


“Ok. You won't regret it. I'll call you when I see him. Ok? You're doing the right thing.”  


“It doesn't feel like it. But Dean is staring. And you seem... You do seem to feel bad. But, make no mistake, Sam. If you hurt my cousin, the fact that I love your brother will not stop me from hurting you back.”  


“Thanks, Cas.”

_***_

Sam traced the address on the hotel stationary once again.  
Every time he closed his eyes, he got snippets of it. That night he thought he'd lost. They were spinning and nauseating and so, so red with hate that they scared Sam himself.  


_“Please,”_ was Gabriel's voice, staticky and faded. “ _Do what you need to do._ ”  


It was a new tone in his voice that Sam didn't quite recognize. But it wasn't like before, in the parking garage, full of surrender and promise. It hurt to try and remember, but Sam couldn't let himself release his hold.  


He laid on the bed and let the full effect of his isolation sink in. He was all alone. He'd done it to himself. And someday he'd hurt from it. It would shatter him, and soon. He was in the eye of the hurricane. A moment of peace and silence, but he knew that if he moved an inch in either direction, he'd get swept up by the storm and taken someplace unrecognizable. He could go back and let the hate fill him up again. He could go forward into the unknown.  


The thing about Sam's life was that when he was a child, he'd hadn't had a bit of control. As an adult, it was the only thing he craved. And now Sam was floating in limbo. No father to drag him against his will and no capacity to drag himself any further. Fifteen years ago, it would frustrate him. Last week it it would have terrified him. But tonight it was silence.  


So he rolled onto his side and watched the clock, and waited for the storm to take him away. 


	6. Chapter 6

Sam found Gabriel's station wagon parked in front of a small wooden faced house outside of Nashville. 

The old car suited the place in an odd way, looking as worn and vagabond quaint as the house it sat by. The whole thing had a well-lived quality to it; sun bleached shutters on the second floor and an amber couch sitting on the front porch. The house itself seemed to be slouching on it's haunches, like finally settling down after a few hard decades of work. A breeze tickled the half dozen wind chimes on the over hang. 

Sam walked up the cracked sidewalk to the front door, being careful to step around the potted plants heaped haphazardly along the path, each climbing over the other as though they had multiplied without making much room. Sam wiped his sweating palms on his jeans as he rang the doorbell. 

Abruptly the front door opened, leaving Sam staring down through the fly screen at a very small, oldish woman with red hair that had clearly come from a box. Her eyebrows were flecked with grey and her once brown eyes were filmy with cataracts. She squinted at him, a familiar expression. Gabriel's expression, all the way down to the little dimple that formed right between his eyebrows.

Before Sam had a chance to open his mouth, she gave him an obvious look up and down before nodding and shouting over her shoulder.

“ABRIE! SOMEONE AT THE DOOR FOR YOU!” 

“I'm right here, Mom.” Gabriel said, rounding the hallway. He stopped in his tracks as he locked eyes with Sam. He put his palm against the screen, preventing her from opening the door all the way and letting him in. She turned and squinted at Gabriel behind her. 

“Let the man in, Abrie. Be polite.” She said slowly. 

“No, he's in a hurry. He doesn't have time to come in. Mom, can you go check lunch? In the kitchen.” She gave him a suspicious look before turning and heading back into the house. 

“Fine, but I'm bringing lemonade.” She hobbled off, an obvious limp to her step but her back as strong and straight as a rod. "Someone in this house should have manners," she muttered to herself loudly. 

“No, Mom. Mom.” Gabriel called after her. She didn't respond. Gabriel exhaled a long slow breath and shook his head. Then Gabriel just looked up at Sam. 

“So... “Sam started, letting it falter. “So... that's your Mom.”

“Let's not.” Gabriel cut him off, “Let's not. Do. That. Ok? What--” Gabriel looked over his shoulder to the house, in the direction the old woman had walked in. “What do you want, Sam?” 

“I just wanted to apologize? Maybe talk about it?” 

Gabriel laughed darkly, “Fine. You apologized. Whatever. Leave.”

“Gabriel, can you _just_?” Gabriel was brushing him off in that same way he'd always done. Hard. Fast. Ripping a band aid off a cut quick. But this, whatever it was, wasn't just some scrape on the knee. It was deep, too deep for all that. “Can you just... sit.?Maybe?” Gabriel still had his hand on the door frame, holding it shut, “I swear, I'll leave for good. Forever. I'll never come back. Dean kicked me out. He needs you. More than he ever needed me. He needs his family.”   
Gabriel's shoulders dropped and he thought for a minute. Finally he looked over his shoulder into the house again. 

“Fine. Out there.” He nodded to the couch on the porch. Sam settled onto it in the far corner, leaving a cushion and a half between where Gabriel settled in. Gabriel crossed his leg over the other and then his arms over his chest. 

Sam had thought he'd seen Gabriel every way there was to see him. There had been Gabriel first thing in the morning, with his hair disheveled and the focus of a targeted torpedo toward the coffee pot in the motel lobby. He'd seen Gabriel after a day of driving, that crease between his brows so deep and entrenched that it seemed like it would never smooth out. He'd even seen Gabriel with his head thrown back, his breathing heavy and looking at Sam like he wanted to devour him in the way that made his insides burn hot. But now Gabriel seemed so, very small and out of place. 

“I don't think I can go back to work for Dean. So.” Gabriel said with a shrug. 

“Was it something I said?” 

“That had something to do with it, I'll admit.” Gabriel's toe was tapping, he was facing as far away from Sam as he could without actually turning around. He looked out the front drive, to where the old station wagon was parked along with all the forgotten planters, cluttered together on the lawn. “I just... couldn't anymore. Now that John's gone... Dean could use a change of pace.”

“But, you're leaving him after our Dad died?” Sam asked, “I mean, he's like family. You just up and leave family when it gets complicated?”

“Yes.” Gabriel said, now looking at the fabric of the couch arm, “And so do you so you can drop the sales pitch. You can leave now, too, if that's all you were here for.”

“Gabriel, I don't” Sam looked over his shoulder to the porch screen, “I don't remember what happened that night.” 

Gabriel gave a cold laugh, finally looking at Sam with familiar, hard, narrowed eyes. “Then consider yourself lucky.” He shook his head, “Of course you wouldn't remember. That's not the way the world works.” 

“Did we... did we have sex?” 

“That's a word for it.” 

Sam paused for a moment. “Did we... have a good time?” 

Gabriel rolled his eyes and shifted his legs, looking back out to the road and the front lawn, far away from Sam and the whole conversation.

“And you wanted to have the sex... right? I didn't make you... did I?” Gabriel hesitated, then nodded his head. “And you... you didn't want...to. I think that's... Gabriel did I rape you?”

“I think so, kiddo.” Gabriel said, his voice tight. “I think that's what they call it.”

Sam's heart got thick and heavy, close to falling through his chest as he took a shallow breath. 

“Gog. God, I'm so fucking... I'm... You have no idea how sorry I am, how awful I feel.”

“I don't really care.” Gabriel said. "I don't really care how it makes _you_ feel." Sam fell silent, his eyes getting misty. 

“That can't be true.” he said, but he didn't sound so sure.

“Leave, Sam. You've done enough.” Sam nodded, quiet, chastised. He stood. 

“Dean needs you.” Sam said.

“No. He doesn't. Dean doesn't actually need anything at all. He's more self sufficient than he gives himself credit for. More than you. More than John.” Gabriel stood as well, “He may have needed his family once, but he's made do. I'm not yours. I'm not his. I'm not family and I'm not even a friend. I quit. Leave it be. Go somewhere and take all that hate inside and turn it on someone else. I got out. I'm not going back. Just. Leave.” 

"Ok. Yeah. Ok, I'm sorry. I'll leave. I'm sorry." Sam clumsily stood, his knees shaking as tried to walk past Gabriel and off the porch. Sam was halfway down the stairs when a motor cycle pulled up. The roar of the engine cut out as the driver pulled onto the lawn, careful, even in his thick boots and heavy bike, of all the potted plants on the lawn. 

He waved at Gabriel, then took off his helmet. He was older, maybe even than Gabriel, with spiked blonde hair. Despite his childish grin and twinkling eyes, it was clear that he had lived fully. All the lines in his face seemed well earned, through laughing and sunlight and too many nights of drinking without much sleep. 

He grinned jovially. Obliviously. He bounded up the porch steps, two at a time with his long legs. 

“Well, hello.” he said, lyrically. His accent was British and now Sam saw the flag decal on his bike, “Who have you been keeping hidden away, Abrie? I hope lunch becomes something of a party.”

“He's leaving.”

“Not before introductions, I hope.” he said, either not reading or ignoring Gabriel's flat tone, “Balthazar.” he said, holding his hand out.

“Sam.” Sam said, taking it. 

“Well, Sam,” Balthazar said, “It is a real pleasure. And you're sure you can't stay for lunch?”

Sam glanced down at Gabriel, who was deliberately not looking at him. Balthazar was smiling, when he leaned toward Gabriel, casually. He didn't go in for a kiss but he did stand a little closer than Sam had seen Gabriel allow. 

And then Sam's stomach fell, he didn't even know it could fall any further. He'd never seen Gabriel with anyone on the road. He'd thought there wasn't anyone at all, like Gabriel was just there, waiting for him. But then, he'd never thought of Gabriel as having a mother. Or a home that looked well used and well loved. Or that it would have “God Bless this Mess” carved into a little plaque above the door. 

Or that there might be a tall, handsome British man who called him 'Abrie' and stayed for lunch. 

“No. I need to go. It's... it's uh, been real nice to meet you.” Sam said, moving past them, down the steps, far and fast as he could. How stupid, he felt, to think he could touch Gabriel. That Gabriel would want to see him or Dean or any of them. Stupid to think that just because his whole life had Gabriel in his periphery, that Gabriel's life would be anything like that. 

He turned to say goodbye, for once, finally, but Gabriel was holding the door open for Balthazar and following him in. He didn't even look down the steps to see Sam looking up at him. Waiting for Gabriel to turn around, to acknowledge him, dismiss him. 

But, Gabriel had never been waiting for him. 

 

***

“Do you want to tell me what that was about?” Balthazar asked casually as Gabriel shut the door behind him. 

“There isn't anything to tell.”

“Hmmm, so a sexy young man on your porch first thing in the morning--”

“It's eleven.”

“-- and he's so very broody and looking at you quite intensely...”

“It's nothing, Balthazar.” 

“Nora is pretty much deaf, these days. You can tell me. She won't hear. Or perhaps you knew that already, over all the things she didn't hear last night.” He gave a lascivious wink. 

Gabriel couldn't help but smile, he shook his head. 

“Abrie, it's been twenty years. I've been married and divorced since then, I think it's ok if we see other people.”

“I know that. That isn't what it was about, so don't... don't worry about it.” Gabriel said. “He wasn't my boyfriend--”

“I never said anything so serious as that,” Balthazar pantomimed shock, placing a hand over his heart.

“Or my boy toy or anything like that.” Gabriel said. He started walking toward the kitchen where his elderly mother was making grilled cheese in hopes that it would shut Balthazar up, “It's nothing. Hey, Mom, can I help you set the table?” 

“Sure. But don't think that that gets you out of having to talk about this boy toy of yours.”

Balthazar gave a bark of a laugh, looping an arm around Gabriel's mother and grinning like an idiot. 

“You're not deaf at all,” Gabriel accused, “You two are in cahoots.” 

Balthazar reached over and kissed his mother on the top of the head. She affectionately rubbed his belly, getting a little round and protruding after all these years after all. He remembered Balthazar, naked and above him, taut and lean and working hard to keep it that way. Now he was kind of soft in some places. Like a different person with the same personality, standing in the same kitchen. 

His mother turned to the table and put a sandwich on their plates. 

It was a little creepy, Gabriel supposed, that nothing seemed to have really changed since he left. Balthazar and his mother starting gossiping about the neighbors next door and the show they watched when Balthazar would come over during his lunch break. Gabriel didn't even need to talk, since Balthazar and his mother soon fell into telling him all the stories of everything he'd missed while he'd been gone. There were quite a few, apparently. Turned out that they didn't even need Gabriel there to have fun together. 

“And then, Abrie, you should have seen the girls' face at the Bridge club when we pulled up.” his mother was saying smugly.

“Wait, did you take my mother on your _bike_?” Gabriel turned to Balthazar. He grinned and shrugged.

“He did. And he even came in to see me off. All the girls wanted to talk about him, said he was like Billy Idol.” 

Gabriel laughed loudly at that as Balthazar turned pink. 

“Billy Idol copied _me_.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said, laughing “I remember.” 

“Anyway, the bike is perfectly safe, Gabriel.” his mother pushed on, “And he's been such a dear to take me around. My eyes and all. It's a big bike. And loud, you can't hear anything else on that bike. Honestly feels like I'm holding on for dear life back there. Balthazar's a great driver though.”

“Yeah, Mom,” Gabriel said, more quietly, “I remember.” 

The table fell uncomfortably silent before his mother stood loudly and started collecting the empty plates from the table. Gabriel looked out the window, even as he felt Balthazar trying to catch his eye. 

Finally, Balthazar stood from the table and headed over to the sink with his mother. 

Balthazar even helped with the dishes without being asked. He and Gabriel's mother standing side by side at the sink, rinsing and washing. Laughing like school girls and leaving Gabriel to stand awkwardly or head out to the porch and sit in the silence. 

Balthazar left about an hour later, kissing his mother on the cheek and pulling Gabriel into a tight hug before he could stop it. 

His mom settled into the couch beside him. The long promised lemonade appearing out of no where. 

She put a glass in his hand and poured one for herself. Her hands were shaking. They had never done that before. She still had her cough. Her eyes were still bad, he remembered them going weak when he left. His Mom was disintegrating. Growing old while he was away. He was her last boy and he left alone. She put a hand, with new topography of swollen knuckles and age spots, over his. 

“Balthazar's been very sweet to me.” she said, sipping her over sweet lemonade and looking pointedly at him. “He's a very nice man. He always asked about you, you know.” 

“I didn't know, Mom.” Gabriel sighed, “He is nice. I never thought he wasn't nice.”

“Well, maybe if you're going to be hanging around for a while it wouldn't kill you to go out to a nice dinner with him. Without me.”

“Yeah, probably not going to, Mom.”

“And I won't wait up.”

“Mom!” 

“Oh, you're forty six, Abrie. And I've seen the whole series of Will and Grace.” 

“That's not... comparable. ”

“Fine. Keep your secrets of gay dating from your fragile dear mother. Why don't you call Anna? Her little girl is almost full grown, now. Im sure she and Zeke would love to hear from you.” 

“Probably not, Mom.” Gabriel said again. His hand twitched. He hadn't smoked in years but was he craving a cigarette now. 

“You'll never get over it if you don't go out a bit. Try to get it off your mind. You come home, you sulk in your old room for a day. You won't talk to me. You won't go to dinner with a nice man. You won't go out and meet your friends. I know it's hard, Abrie. You think I just wanted to get up and make breakfast the morning after your father left? You think I felt like going to work? You just do it. Make yourself do it until you don't have to force it anymore.” She sighed, “I wish it was easier. But what are you gonna do? See, Abrie, as much as you like to act like you don't give a fuck--”

“Wow, Mom, language.” 

His mother smiled ruefully, raising a knobbly hand and brushing the comment off. 

“As much as I think you like to pretend you don't care... you do. Care. On the rare occasion that you do care, I think you get hurt easier than the rest of us. You're my sweet boy, Gabriel, no matter how old you get and no matter how hard you try to be flip.” She sighed and nudged him with her elbow, "You got your heart broke."

"That's not... Mom. That's not it."

"No?" she said, raising an eyebrow. "My mistake. You know, I got my heart broke once. A man gave me five beautiful boys and left me to fend for them for myself. I was devastated. I was terrified. But I had my heart broken too. I know it sounds small, Abrie, but there isn't any harm in feeling it."

His mother snaked her fingers with his, giving his hand a squeeze. 

“You never talked about Dad before.”

“Haven't I?”

Gabriel shook his head. “Not with me.”

“Well, I don't talk about it much at all. Loved a man. Gave him everything but it turned out what I had to give was too overwhelming for him. Kids. A house. Unconditional love. All that giving suffocated the guy. So he left without a word.” She rolled her eyes, “It was hard, at first. Then it got easier. Now it just sort of is a thing that happened. I love all my boys. It was too much for him but it had always been just enough for me. Don't tell your brothers I told you. Michael would feel awful guilty. “

“I'm sorry, Mom. Do you ever think of... I don't know? Dating again? Moving on?”

“Yes. Sometimes. It's harder for people like you and me, Abrie.” she said. When Gabriel just looked at her, confused, she squeezed his hand again, “I've never really been happy with nice men either.” She winked. 

They sat in silence for a few more minutes before she started again. 

“Was that boy the reason you came home?” she asked without preamble. “Sam Winchester. I know he was their boy. Was he the reason you came home?”

“Mom, you really think a boy would make me want to come home?” 

“Honestly, Gabriel, I've never been sure of what makes you want to do anything. I don't know what makes you want to marry a man instead a woman like your brothers. I don't know what it is that makes you happy.”

Gabriel felt his eyes get hot. Fuck, when was the last time he cried? The night he got raped? The night John died? 

“Me neither, Mom.” He said, and out came the undignified snuff of air, a gross gulp of spittle and snot and all the little parts of him breaking. 

“Oh, honey. Abrie.” She cooed, pulling him in toward her. He let himself be held; enough self preservation to stop from clinging to her like he did when he was a child and no one would let him play. The last time he had felt hurt, before he knew how to cut it out with surgical precision. 

“I'm sorry, Mom.” he said softly. She let him wipe his eyes on her shoulder and go back to pretending it never happened. “I'm sorry if I was like him.”

“You could never be like him. Luc? Maybe. Oh, please don't tell him,” she said, petting Gabriel's hair again, “You know why I call you my sweet boy?”

“I figured it was always because I asked for seconds on dessert and I'm the littlest.”

“It's cause you're like me, Abrie.” She said, “And Michael may be noble. Raphael may be ambitious. Luc is... well, Heaven knows what Luc is but he's a lot of it. But you and me? We're better at surviving than the rest of them. We are a little bit stronger. Whatever happened between you and that boy... you'll be fine, sweetheart. We will always find a way to be just fine.”


	7. Chapter 7

*** **1982** ***

“New guy.” Rufus called to him from across the lot. Gabriel was just finishing securing the drum set to the van before they drove to the next city for the upcoming show. Rufus gestured back toward the back of the bar that they had just come out of. “You heading in?”

“Yeah. In a minute.” 

The band was ending a weekend long engagement, moving to a whole new state and a whole new set of people in less than a day. But the band and the crew, was always the same. There was Rufus who was gruff and serious until he got a scotch in his hand. Ellen, six months pregnant and still hawking merch like a pro. Her husband, Anthony, played the bass. She still watched him with dewey eyes at rehearsal. 

It had been four months but Gabriel figured he'd probably be 'new guy' until they got someone newer. It had been a surprising transition, even to Gabriel who had figured he was too aloof and purposeless to be surprised by anything. People were friendly, but not too interested. They'd listen to him talk about where he was from but forget a few minutes later. It took them a while to get his name right. But Gabriel sort of liked the anonymity of it all. The roadies and the band lived like vagabonds, forgetting names and faces as quickly as they passed through the cities. Crew didn't last forever. They were rolling stones till they weren't. No one looked too close at newbies, but they welcomed them all the same.

As Gabriel headed back to the backstage of the show they'd been playing, he was welcomed into the throng of his crew mates and band members with pats on his back and a beer being shoved into his hand. 

John stood on top of the stage with an arm around Mary. Some sort of announcement was about to be made, no doubt, but there usually was one at the end of the show. Rufus or John, sometimes Mary, would get on stage, hold up a drink, say something to the effect of “Great show, let's do it again next week but in the meantime: drugs and booze all around. Huzzah!” 

So Gabriel took a pull of his beer and waited politely. 

“Excuse me, excuse me. Attention please.” John called to the crowd, “Hey ass clowns, we've got a special fucking announcement.” He bellowed good heartedly. 

“Yeah, yeah, you're nailing the lead singer. Congrats.” Someone heckled. John laughed broadly and gave a middle finger in that direction. Beside him, Mary smacked his side playfully. 

“All right, ass clowns.” She grinned, “All right, settle down. This is important and the sooner you shut your pie holes the sooner we can celebrate!” 

The small, rowdy crowd settled down marginally. 

“Where's my boy?” John asked, shielding his eyes and exaggerating his search of the crowd. Dean, all of three and a quarter years old was roosted on Rufus' shoulders, above the crowd; grinning and waving too hard to miss. 

“Daaaaaad” He called, circling his arms.

“There's my boy!” John walked to the edge of the stage and Rufus walked to the side, passing the kid from one to the other. Dean was grinning wickedly with the game and the attention. John hitched Dean on his hip and looked back down at his wife. 

“This is really an announcement for Dean-o too.” Mary said. 

“Get on with it!” 

Mary gave a middle finger to the same heckler from before, managing to still look as coy and demure as she always did with her soft blonde curls and big blue eyes. Everyone laughed, someone said something about John being a bad influence and he leaned in and kissed her. 

“Well,” Mary said, “Dean, sweetie. We love you very much. But your Dad and I have some exciting news.” She paused for effect. Dean was only half paying attention, looking out to the crowd from his father's arms. “Dean, sweetie, how would you like to be a big brother? Daddy and I are having another baby. Do you want a little brother or sister?” 

Dean thought about that for a long moment. He then nodded and shrugged, as though he had just been asked if he wanted macaroni for dinner.

“Good, cause you're getting one. Mary's knocked up again!” John linked his fingers with hers and held their hands triumphantly. Dean stared blankly at his parents before the crew's heads finally caught up with their words and let out a raucous whoop of noise. Dean finally grinned, letting himself be passed from his father to his mother's arms as the unmistakable sounds of a keg being tapped went off behind Gabriel. 

Dean had followed Ellen around and knew, in general, that babies were from somewhere inside a mother's stomach. He grabbed his mother around her belly and held tight. Mary snaked her fingers through his hair. 

Someone grabbed Gabriel by the arm and turned him toward the rest of the crew and the new father to be, attempting a rather valiant keg stand. 

They all got drunk. They all got loud. Mary disappeared with Dean around one am to lay him out on the back seat of the car. She tucked him in using his father's coat. 

Rufus, Anthony and John did a line of coke in the dressing room backstage. Then everyone piled into their cars and headed out for the night. Just like they always had. 

Gabriel hadn't thought much of the rampant drug use that happened around him. He was as willing to light up a joint as the next guy but he didn't participate in the use of stimulants that kept the band in motion. After all, more shows meant more money. Stimulants meant that they made the next show on time. It was just a part of the life; like the beer that people drank at ten am without anyone thinking anything of it or the ever constant presence of Rufus' “friends” who he happened to have in every city that spent the show lurking in trailers and bathrooms frequented by the band and crew. 

Gabriel had never cared about much and this certainly wasn't going to do it. People needed to get their rocks off and Gabriel was soothed by the constant motion that seemed to rely the lines of snow and unmarked pills being ingested all around him. It helped him not miss his mother. It helped him not feel guilty for not missing Balthazar.

Mary's pregnancy sobered everyone up, though. More or less. When Gabriel would look back on it, he'd think of the months before Sam's birth as the 'golden era.' People still got drunk. People still got high but only at night and never in front of her. It got to the point where there was no good in pretending she wasn't in the family way, as round as she was. They bought her a new guitar strap that accommodated her size. 

***

“It's going to be a little girl.” She confided in Gabriel one afternoon. “A pretty little girl. Like Ellen's.” 

They were sitting on the hood of Gabriel's station wagon. Mary with a can of Fresca and a bag of pretzels that she was 'not willing to share, so don't ask.' She looked cool as ever, in her round, Lennon sunglasses and too big denim jacket that Gabriel reckoned she stole from John. Gabriel was sweating in the heat, but Mary insisted on wearing the coat, like she always did. They had stopped for the day in a small town in the desert of California and were parked in the lot of a single story motel that looked like square little adobes from the outside. 

She confided things in Gabriel, though he didn't really understand why. Perhaps it was because he looked liked he needed friends or perhaps he was the most sober of them all. Gabriel didn't tell secrets simply because he didn't care and Mary seemed to like that about him. 

“Don't tell John, I want it to be a surprise.” She said, “A little girl with his dark hair and my blue eyes and she'll play the piano.” She sounded sure. 

“Ok. I won't tell.” Gabriel said. He took a drag on his cigarette. Mary looked over at him wistfully and instead ate another pretzel. Gabriel minded to blow the smoke away from her. “How are you going to fit a piano in the van?”

Mary smiled and turned to him, beckoning him closer, “John and I have some money saved. We're gonna get a house. I'm gonna give guitar lessons from our living room and the kids can play in the back yard. John can get a job as a mechanic. It'll be perfect. It'll be just us.”

“Well, I think I might have just lost my job.” Gabriel scratched his head, “But I'm happy for you?” 

Across the parking lot, John barked out a laugh and wrapped an arm around Rufus' shoulder. The other hand held Dean's in his, and Dean looked up at the men with nothing short of awe in his eyes. He was wearing an I heart Nevada City shirt and John's aviator sunglasses. 

“John know you guys are settling down after the baby comes?” Gabriel asked, “Or is that a surprise too?”

“He'll understand. He'll want what's best.” Mary said. “He'll understand when I explain it.”

She ate another pretzel, scratched her arm nervously. Gabriel took another drag.

***

One night they didn't make the show. It was the first time they had ever flaked. No one could seem to find Mary, but then no one was looking too hard. She was more independent than the others and sought out time for herself. It wouldn't be unusual for Mary to just appear five minutes before stage time. Her guitar was always tuned and her voice was always warmed up so no one minded much. She was just Mary and she did as she pleased. At least she was more courteous than John, who was generally more disruptive in that he usually liked to have a posse of his crew when he decided to wander away from their motels between shows.  
Mary had never missed a show before, but that wasn't Gabriel's problem. Someone else was handling it. This meant that Gabriel had the night off to watch pay per view porn and not think about the fact that, out of the whole road crew, he was the only who hadn't hooked up in a city thus far. He didn't miss Balthazar, per se. He missed that smoky voice and those confident hands, taking Gabriel up without a minute of hesitation. There wasn't an ounce of shyness in Balthazar's blatant interest. No one else had been interested in Gabriel since. 

Gabriel walked into his room and stopped short.

“What are you...” he croaked, his voice raspy all of the sudden. 

“Where's Rufus?” Mary asked. She was laying on his bed, her hair dark and sweaty. She was shivering in the heat of the room, without fresh air, suffocating in it. The denim coat was pulled around her tight, sweat lining the collar as she clutched it to her. 

“What's... are you sick? Are you... the baby?” Gabriel didn't remember what words were, they tumbled out of his mouth without checking in with him first. Mary didn't speak, just shook her head 'no.' Gabriel stumbled like a dazed man out of his room. Maybe he left the door wide open, he couldn't remember. 

Rufus. Rufus would know what to do. She should have gone to Rufus' room in the first place, not mistaken Gabriel as someone who could handle this. Mistaken  
Gabriel as an adult who could handle anything at all. 

“Gabe, man.” John, had to be John, the only one who hadn't cared when Gabriel corrected him, 'No, actually, it's Gabriel' when they first met.

“Gabe. You seen Mary? She hasn't checked in... what's wrong?” John's face fell, lost all of his boyish innocence in a single blink, “Where is she?” 

Gabriel just looked behind him, to his room, and that was enough. 

“Fuck.” John said, “Fuck.”

“I'm going to find Rufus,” Gabriel said, like the idiot he was. 

“Yeah. Yeah.” John bleated was turning, heading to Gabriel's room. 

Gabriel didn't find Rufus, he did, however, find Dean sleeping in the backseat of John's car, all alone and completely unattended. So Gabriel leaned against the trunk and shakily lit a cigarette. Happy to have found a purpose at last. Gabriel wasn't sure how long he stood there, specifically not thinking about Mary or the daughter in her belly. The fact that John seemed to know what was wrong before he even said the words. 

He thought about his cigarette and cursed Rufus for not being enough. 

He cursed John for knowing that something might happen and not doing anything about it. 

He cursed himself for not seeing it sooner. 

Withdrawal was an ugly, sweaty mess of human existence and he had watched Luc twitch and spew all kinds of bodily fluids, shiver for days when he finally got rounded up for that smack he was selling. Gabriel pinched his nose. His cigarette was out. He didn't have anything to do with his hands so he shoved them into his pockets. He kicked the earth. Time moved too slow in this in between time. Waiting for Rufus, waiting for Mary to snap out of it. Waiting for himself to figure out how to react. It was too uncomfortable, this trying to learn how to react. Gabriel hated Mary for making him feel it. 

Then he hated himself for not being able to figure it out for on his own.

Gabriel had been out there for a minute. Maybe fifteen. Maybe thirty. Three cigarette butts sat cluttered around his feet but he could really smoke like a chimney when he felt out of place. There was a rap on the window he leaned against, making him jump. Miniature little Dean sat at the window, watching him.

Dean rolled the window down, odd little crease marks stitched up and down his face, making him look like a poorly rested zombie. He afforded Gabriel a single blink of recognition. 

“I'm hungry.” he said. 

“No you aren't, kiddo, you just ate.” Gabriel said without thinking. He pulled another cigarette from his pocket. 

“Nuh uh.” Dean said, “Nuh uh I haven't eaten for ages.”

“Yes, you just did. Hold tight, Dean-o.” Gabriel said, lighting up.

“Where's Mom?” Dean asked, looking around. “Gabriel, I'm hungry.” 

There still wasn't any movement from his room, from where Mary laid dying or puking or shivering or whatever else was happening. The world was tipping on it's side, knocking everyone over and making them wait in this purgatory of not knowing what the fuck was happening. There was no ambulance, though. Maybe it was under control. For the first time in his life, Gabriel started to wish that he had a little piece of that control for himself.

Dean opened his mouth to complain again. Gabriel could, at the very least, help with this.

“Yeah, ok, Dean-o.” He patted his pockets, finding a crumpled and empty cigarette pack and, thankfully, his wallet. “Yeah, lets go to the diner, yeah? We'll get you some food.” 

Dean broke out into an intoxicatingly bright smile, letting himself out of the car. Without prompting, he grabbed Gabriel's hand as they headed to the 24 hour diner next to the motel. 

Dean wanted a milkshake and a piece of apple pie and also french fries and a cheeseburger. Gabriel knew that Mary hardly let Dean eat whatever he pleased, but Gabriel's mind was numb and buzzing whenever he even thought the word 'Mary'.

And so he ordered Dean some apple pie and himself a cup of coffee. It was black and burnt tasting from sitting hours on the burner as the bored waitress poured over old issues of Redbook. Dean happily ate in silence. Luckily, the kid was pretty adept at entertaining himself. He was used to being passed from crew member to crew member and didn't question adults when he found himself in their care. Dean's legs swung under the table as his fork clacked loudly against his plate, echoing in the silent diner, save for the Billy Joel playing on the jukebox. 

Dean finished his pie and started looking around the diner for new entertainment. The waitress topped off Gabriel's coffee. Dean made a fort out of the salt shakers and the menus. He begged about eighty cents off of Gabriel and put it in the jukebox; the kid couldn't read but he could push the buttons for his favorite pictures and tape decks he recognized from the floor of his parents' car. He played 'hot lava' with all the white tiles on the checkered floor. Then he did it again with all the black tiles. 

The waitress refilled Gabriel's coffee. Dean found a pen and started drawing on napkins. 

“Gabriel, look.” Dean said, hitting too hard on Gabriel's elbow to pull his attention from the window, where Gabriel watched the motel parking lot. “Gabriel, look, look.” 

Gabriel did. Dean's face lit up. “Look, Gabriel, look. It's Mom and Dad and that's the baby and that's me. And that's Dad's guitar. And look, I drew you too. See, that's you. And now I'm gonna draw Ellen and Anthony and their baby too.

***

Rufus did show up eventually. Sweating and nervous, searching frantically for her. Someone had told him where she was. Someone had guessed what she needed from him. 

The coke and the weed were plentiful on the road. Truck stops were filled with drivers and dealers trying to keep going through the night. 

But the opiates, the ones that left drag marks in her arms. The thin, cold arms always under her husbands coat... well, those were harder to find.  
Rufus had fewer friends in this city. This excuse for a city between nowhere and nothing, a show they were doing for less than $500, hardly enough to break even after the gas and the motel. Gabriel hated Rufus for that.

John hated Rufus too, apparently.

Dean fell asleep again, slumped across the side of the booth. The waitress' shift ended. Gabriel heard the jukebox repeat itself. Dean didn't even wake up when Gabriel slung him into his arms and carried him back to the motel. They could go to Ellen's room. He could sleep there. Gabriel didn't think he'd ever sleep again. 

Ellen's room was three doors down from his, he'd have to pass his room to get to hers. Gabriel braced himself. Dean shifted sleepily.

“And you've been giving it to her?” Gabriel heard John growl through the thin walls. There was no doubt in Gabriel's mind that everyone could hear them, everyone was listening. Rufus had showed up, apparently, and found his way to the expectant mother in the throes of withdrawl. 

“You've been giving it to her?” He asked dangerously again. 

“You can't tour and do treatment” Rufus snapped, not backing down even under John's righteous hate, “You can't just wander into random methadone centers and get a dose willy nilly. They want you to sign up for a program and go to meetings. She asked for it. I got it. That's the extent of this transaction. She's an addict, John. Can't just quit when it isn't fashionable anymore.”

“I didn't know...”

“Bullshit. We all knew.” 

“I didn't know it was this bad.” John said, so soft that Gabriel almost didn't hear through the paper thin excuse for a wall. So... lost, sounding. 

“They way you kids were running... coke and booze and fumes... what'd you think would happen?” Rufus sighed, all the fight out of his voice. “I... I seen it happen to good kids. But... it was only enough to not go into shock. That's all it was. She wasn't getting high, anymore, she was just staying even.” 

“Do you think... do you think the baby will be ok?”

“I'm not a doctor, John. Just an old fart. Dean was fine, though. She was doing less, back then, but Dean was fine.” 

“Jesus.” John breathed, “Jesus, what a fucking mess.”

“It's over, now.” Gabriel heard bed springs move, heavy footsteps. “Get some sleep, John. And talk it over with your wife in the morning.”

The door opened and a white faced, half dead looking John startled as he saw them. Gabriel, numb and tired, and then Dean, asleep and unaware, exhausting in its own right. 

“Oh, Dean--” John said balnkly. “Oh, Dean-- I had--” _Forgotten_ sat heavily in the air. 

“I'll take him. You take our room tonight. I'll take him in here.”

Gabriel didn't move to hand Dean over. 

“She'll want to see him when she wakes up... I'll take him.” 

“She's going to be ok?”

“Yeah. Yeah, she got sick and now she's just sleeping. Give me my boy, Gabriel. He should be with his mother.” 

Reluctantly, Gabriel let Dean be lifted from him. John tucked the boy under his arm and smiled weakly before shutting the door in Gabriel's face. 

*** **Present** ***

 

Sam laid out on the motel bed. His cellphone in one hand, his keys in the other. 

He didn't have much more than a night, maybe two, of rent before his card maxed out. Plus he needed to get where ever he was going. A treatment center, perhaps. But for what? Rage? Would they take him in for something so small as his temper? 

And his tendencies to rape, apparently. His obsessive nature, probably. 

Even knowing what he'd done with enough detail to know he could never be forgiven, Sam thought of Gabriel. Couldn't seem to think of anything else since puberty. How he hated Gabriel. Everything from his hair to his body to his voice, Sam could more vividly remember Gabriel than anyone else in his life. After ten years, Sam had forgotten the exact shade of hazel in John's eyes. Every time Sam saw Dean, he was surprised at his brother's size. But Gabriel... Sam could probably paint Gabriel with his eyes closed. Sam had never been in danger of forgetting; even in Jess' bed, Jess' arms he remembered Gabriel. That tight pull of hate in his gut was so similar to arousal that Sam sometimes got mixed up, thought of Gabriel, hated Gabriel while he thrust into his lover. 

And that obsession... unfair, unwarranted but no less real for those reasons, plagued him. And, now, it had hurt people around him. Innocent bystanders, or at least as innocent as Gabriel ever could be. 

Sam needed to get Gabriel from his soul, from his heart, from that hate/arousal that lived in the deepest pits of his belly. He knew this was worse, this following Gabriel home, this dragging him in, harassing him after Sam had already done something so unspeakable that he still felt sick when he remembered. But this could be the last time. 

Before treatment, before therapy or his new life or whatever Sam was going to end up doing, he could do this one last time. He dialed Gabriel's number. It went to voicemail, maybe it would be easier that way. 

_“Hey... Gabriel. It's me. It's Sam. Look, I know I shouldn't be doing this. I know what I did was awful and you can never forgive me and I have no right to ask you to try. I just... I hurt people. I don't know why but I keep hurting people. I just... I can't be like that anymore. I can't be like this. So... so I just... I just wanted to say that this is the last time I'll be bothering you. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry to do this to you, but I just... I just needed to say goodbye. Take care of Dean for me, won't you? Ok. Ok, that's all. I'll leave you alone now. I'm sorry. I'm so, so fucking sorry. Goodbye.”_

Sam turned his phone off. He turned the light off. He closed his eyes and waited for the night to be over. He needed a plan, something to do next to get better or at least get him away from everyone he loved and hurt inexplicably. He need to think. 

But he could do all that in the morning. Tomorrow was the first day of the rest of his life, which made this night the last night of his old one. 

_***_

Sam wasn't sure what woke him at first. 

The room was still dark, and the tree in front of his window prevented him from seeing much in the silhouette of streetlights. 

He heard the sound of his door being unlocked, something moved in the window beside his door. Sam sat up, at the ready as the door swung open and someone walked in. Something about those footsteps... Sam knew who it was. 

_“Sam?”_

“Gabriel?” Sam said breathlessly. “Gabriel—what--” 

And then Sam was assaulted, tackled onto his back, on the bed as he was straddled, as hands blindly grabbed at his face and pulled him upward to Gabriel's--  
to Gabriel's mouth. 

This was a dream. This wasn't real. Gabriel couldn't be here, he couldn't be doing this. 

But Gabriel's lips against his was too vivid. He tasted like spit and mouth and all the mundane, human tastes of the world. Sam moaned deliciously. 

Gabriel pressed further, pressed his tongue against Sam, into Sam and Sam let him. It was clumsy and desperate, too hard. Sam angled his head to get closer, to let Gabriel into his mouth deeper and their teeth knocked together. 

“Gabriel,” Sam whimpered, “Gabriel” 

“The _fuck_ \--?” Gabriel said, his voice thin and wrecked, “You don't fucking--- you don't leave messages like that on someone's phone. You don't just-- I thought--” Gabriel rested his forehead against Sam's, “I thought... Sam, I thought you were going to kill yourself.” 

“Oh.” Sam wracked his memory. It was so hard to remember what he said with Gabriel in his lap. That memory, that feeling of leaving and putting all this behind him seemed so far away with Gabriel's taste in his mouth. “Oh, god, Gabriel, no. I wouldn't... I didn't mean that.” 

“You can't...” Gabriel's voice quavered, “You can't do that.” 

“Hey,” Sam lifted his hand to Gabriel's face and Gabriel flinched. The memory of the night, of Gabriel trying to turn away, hiding his face, pink where Sam had hit him came back to Sam with blood chilling accuracy. He withdrew his hand like it was on fire. 

“I don't think I can--” 

“I didn't call you for this.” Sam said, putting his hands back on the bed beside him, “I didn't call you so you'd come here and do this. I wasn't trying to get anything out of you.“ 

“Trust me, Sam, nothing about... nothing that's happened has seemed premeditated.” Gabriel muttered, still plastered to Sam's forehead with his own, still breathing Sam's air. 

“God, Gabriel,” Sam whispered, “How can you be here? How can you touch me like this after-- after-- God, Gabriel, How can you forgive me?”

“I don't know if I can...” Gabriel said after a moment, “But me touching you... doesn't seem to have anything to do with me forgiving you.” 

“Can I touch you?” Sam whispered, his hands now hovering over Gabriel's hips. “I really want to...” 

“I don't know. Jesus, Sam, I have no idea...” Gabriel swallowed. Sam could practically taste the bile in his mouth. How long had he wanted this and hated himself for it? How long had he wanted Gabriel and hated the man who never seemed to have time. It wasn't until after he had broken it that Sam realized how much he had wanted it whole. Sam had ruined this thing between them. They were balancing on broken glass. 

“Sam--” Gabriel muttered, “I have no idea. You make me feel--- You make me feel-- You make me feel. It's been so long since I've felt anything at all.” 

“I want you.” Sam closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see Gabriel pull away. “I want you but I don't think I could ever want someone who did what I did to you.” 

The sweat from Gabriel's forehead melded with the sweat from Sam's. He didn't pull away. Sam threaded his fingers with the comforter on the bed, then he tilted his head up, joining his mouth with Gabriel's. Just a touch. An invitation. A plea to go back to hands and whatever that kiss had been leading to. Whatever it was; attraction or obsession that existed between them before Sam ruined them both. 

Gabriel took it. Took control of the kiss, tangled his hands in Sam's hair, angling his head up to him. Sam wanted to touch him, wanted to feel him for real, pull Gabriel closer to him than this floating, tentative kiss that could lead to nowhere or anywhere in the blink of an eye. But he didn't, that flinch of Gabriel's, so fully understandable, was branded into Sam's heart with the pure heat of shame and regret. 

“I'm sorry, Gabriel,” Sam breathed, “I'm so sorry.” 

“Quit... quit reminding me. Stop bringing it up.” Gabriel pleaded. 

“I'm sorry,” Sam murmured again, “I just think I love you.” Gabriel pulled away, looking down at Sam with suspicious and narrowed eyes. “I think I loved you and that's why I hated you. You were... you were so beautiful and so much older and it wasn't fair because you could never love me back. I was a kid and I was scared and humiliated by my crush... I couldn't feel _nothing_ for you... so I hated you. I'm sorry, Gabriel. I'm so fucking sorry. And then I hated me for hating you. You never deserved any of that.” 

Gabriel closed the distance between their mouths again, more tender and less harsh. Less rushed and so much more terrifying because of it. 

Gabriel's hands finally left Sam's hair, moving down to his shoulders and his chest, to his waist. Sam's stomach fluttered like he'd never been touched down there at all. Like he was thirteen; enthralled and afraid of his own sex. Gabriel made him feel thirteen again, and that had all sorts of skeevy implications but Sam couldn't articulate any of them, even to himself. He just felt himself nervous and comforted and so, so turned on by Gabriel's touch, by Gabriel's control. 

Gabriel's hands started opening his pants, no nonsense and Sam supposed that was fair, though he felt a pang at the loss of more exploratory touches, more ofGabriel's body heat and closeness before they got to the main event. His thirteen year old self wanted to feel more, feel it all, it practically felt like his first time. 

But it wasn't. It wasn't even his first time doing this with Gabriel. There was no more undertone of innocence between them. 

And that was no one's fault but his own. 

“God, Gabriel,” Sam breathed as his cock felt the relief of Gabriel's hand as it was pulled through the slit of his pants and underwear. Sam's hands were shaking on the bed before he couldn't help himself anymore. His hands hovered over Gabriel's thighs, “Gabriel, can I touch you?” Sam whispered. 

“No.” 

Sam sighed, hurt, but not anywhere near as much as he deserved. Before that could sink in, though, and Sam could more throughly punish himself for that, Gabriel gave a deft tug on his cock and Sam shuddered all over. 

“God, Gabriel.” Sam repeated. He knew he sounded like a broken record, but it was still hard to believe. “Oh, God, Gabriel. Please." 

Gabriel pulled away again, and this time, kept going. Sam opened his eyes at the loss of Gabriel's heat against his body. Gabriel stood at the foot of the bed, out of Sam's immediate reach just... looking at him. 

Gabriel walking away then, turning from Sam all hard and open and repentant, wouldn't even be close to fair after what Sam had done. He braced himself for it, half expecting Gabriel to laugh at him and leave him there. 

Sam couldn't read Gabriel's face, never could. Gabriel didn't leave though, just... stared. 

“Take your clothes off.” 

Sam did. He didn't draw it out, didn't tease or flirt. That wasn't what this was, and even Sam could tell that. Sam slid his pants down to his ankles, kicked them off and then pulled his shirt over his head. 

Sam looked back to Gabriel, and waited. 

Gabriel stared at him for what felt like forever. 

“Scoot back.” He said, but he started toeing off his shoes as he did it. Sam moved his weight back further on the bed, far enough back that he couldn't rest his feet on the floor. 

Gabriel stepped forward, deliberate and slow and so fucking hot that Sam's cock leapt without a single touch. Gabriel kneed up on the bed, between Sam's legs. 

“Gabriel,” Sam breathed again. He'd said the word so many times it had lost it's meaning and gained a million new ones, new meanings that Sam couldn't use other words to say. With that word, Sam expressed astonishment, and hunger. That single word was pleading, begging, regret, submission. “ _Gabriel_.” 

Gabriel's hands wrapped around Sam's thighs, spreading them further as Sam gasped at the feeling of being so exposed. “Are you going to fuck me?” 

Gabriel paused, the silence heavy. “Would you let me?” 

“Yeah,” Sam exhaled. “Please.” 

Sam took a sharp breath as Gabriel's hand wrapped around his cock again, slowly working it, keeping it so rigidly hard that Sam couldn't think straight. The other hand, Sam shivered as it slid past his balls, over his taint to his asshole. Sam spread his legs even futher, offering up what he had with shameful ease. A finger teased at the rim. 

“Tight,” Gabriel commented. “Have you ever--?” 

“No.” 

“Not even with fingers?" 

_Sam shook his head._

“I can't, then.” 

“You can. I-- I want you to.” 

“Anal sex doesn't really work like that.” Gabriel started working that finger into him, though, as he jacked Sam's cock without missing a beat. Sam winced at the pain as Gabriel's finger pressed inward. “You can't take a cock yet. Need to work up to it. You could get hurt.” 

“That's ok.” Sam insisted, “That's fine. It's good. I--” Sam didn't have to say _'deserve it'_ for them both to hear it loud and clear. 

Gabriel didn't say anything for a while. It was just the increasingly slick sound of Gabriel running his hand up and down Sam's leaking dick. 

“When you were sixteen,” Gabriel's voice was a rasp. A crack in the facade of cool control, “And I saw you masturbating... I wanted to touch you.” He whispered it like the darkest, most deep disgrace. Like the dark motel room, like their bed was some sort of confessional. “I wanted to blow you.” Gabriel took one hand and pushed Sam flat onto his back. 

“Please” was all he managed to say as he stared up at the ceiling, still not daring to believe what was happening. 

Then Gabriel's mouth was on him. And Gabriel was so, so fucking good and hot and wet. Sam wanted to thrust his hips up, wanted to lock his hands in Gabriel's hair, wanted to run his thumbs over the space where Gabriel's lips were open around his cock. But, instead, he kept his hands by his sides, awkward and unsure as he was when he was some virgin teen. 

_“Gonna come,” Sam warned, “Shit, sorry Gabriel but I'm-- I'm--”_

Gabriel never took his mouth of Sam's cock, even as Sam shot his load. No one had ever swallowed him before. 

Gabriel wiped the his mouth with the back of his hand as he straightened up, looking down at Sam, all vulnerable and needy and still split open, his thighs spread as far as they'd go on the bed. Gabriel unzipped his pants, pulled himself out and starting working his own cock, looking down at Sam's prone form. 

“Tell me how you'd let me fuck you.” 

“Any way.” Sam said instantly. Lamely. He couldn't be expected to be sexy and smart when everything he'd ever wanted was between his legs. The shock was making him stupid. “I'd-- I'd want you to fuck me from behind.” Sam offered. Gabriel nodded, encouraging, still jacking himself. Sam watched his hand, transfixed. “I always wanted you to fuck me from behind. Hold me down. Tell me to keep quiet. Use me how you wanted. I've thought about it a lot.” 

Gabriel's hand was speeding up, his eyes glazing over. Sam reached between his own legs, to his clenched hole. “Want you to fuck me, Gabriel,” he breathed, and punctuated the end of his sentence by shoving, mercilessly, into himself. He crammed his index finger in his hole, all the way to the third knuckle, his body singing in pain and something warm and nice and elusive at the corners of it. 

Gabriel hiccuped and stared, slack jawed, where Sam had penetrated himself. "Tell me you love me again," Gabriel said so softly that Sam almost didn't hear. 

"I think I've always loved you." 

And then Sam was being showered in Gabriel's come. 


	8. Chapter 8

Gabriel had known for a while that he wasn't exactly renowned for his sound judgement. 

He was great at doing as people asked. John had told him to keep moving after Mary died and Rufus' termination and Gabriel's promotion occurred within the same hour. Gabriel could do that. Gabriel step out in front and lead the band to nowhere. 

But for his own self. His own desires and needs and wants, well Gabriel was no good at any of that. Turned out that he wanted all the worst things. Turned out that he couldn't do a goddamn thing to keep himself safe. After all, he'd gotten Sam's call and dropped what he was doing to seek him out. Threw himself into Sam's arms when those were the arms that had held him down and devastated him. Everything Sam had done since he came back had ruined Gabriel's life, had ruined Dean's life, had ruined everything. And Gabriel couldn't do anything but get in line to let Sam devastate him some more. 

Gabriel's hand stopped mid stroke through Sam's hair as he felt Sam's breathing level out. After Gabriel had come over Sam's chest, his neck, a flicker of come on Sam's chin, he laid down beside Sam, unsure of how to touch. 

Sam wiped Gabriel's seed off himself and cleaned his hand on the worn comforter that had long been kicked off the bed. Eventually, Sam curled next to him, careful not to lay his limbs over or touching Gabriel in any way, that weird, come speckled boundary still respected. After a minute of that, laying beside each other, breathing in the silence, Sam tucked his head down, placing it in Gabriel's stomach.

And then Gabriel had lifted his hand. He still hadn't decided if he was going to push Sam off when his fingers decided for him, stroking Sam's long hair. Sam sighed in relief. Gabriel wished he knew what that felt like. 

The arm that Sam had pinned under his shoulder was falling asleep and Gabriel was getting restless, so he slid free and headed to the door. It was a warm night, so he left his coat somewhere on the dark floor and slipped out of the motel room.

***

Mary overdosed a few rocky months after Sam was born.

For the first time that Gabriel could remember, Mary and John were being openly short with each other. They never sat next to each other at meals anymore and if they did happen to wind up next to each other they were either whispering to each other in tense, clipped tones or were completely silent. 

This, in itself, might have been more uncomfortable than unbearable if it weren't for the fighting. 

Every night, behind closed doors, Mary told John to leave and never come back. At least once a week, John took her up on it. Saying he didn't need Mary. He didn't need her or her smack and any judge with eyes would give him custody of the kids. She screamed that he never understood. She wouldn't be like this if she had never met him. Her father had warned her about him. She wished she never met him.   
Awful things. Miserable things. For hours every night. 

One by one, the crew dwindled down from the jolly ranks it had once been to a mere haggard handful. In reality, they probably had as much money as they always did. They'd never been flushed but they'd always been a family. But the tension in John and Mary's marriage bled into all of them, making everyone tense and snappish. No one slept well two doors down from the lullaby of their bitterness as those two dug into each other. People started staying behind in the towns they passed through, or they got jobs with the other bands playing at their shows. Without warning, Gabriel suddenly found himself in charge of things. Instruments to be cleaned and tuned, people to be herded, gigs to book. Overnight, Gabriel became the person to find if someone had a question. He had become a person to turn to. 

And, beyond his own wildest beliefs, he didn't fuck it all to hell. He was actually, kind of ok at it.

Finally, Mary and John started getting separate rooms. The children divided so easily among them that it might be casual if there wasn't so much hate reeking in the air. Dean slept in John's room, coveting the fact that he was awarded such special attention over the baby. Dean and John ate Jerky and John let Dean watch the violent cowboy movies Mary couldn't stand. John started calling Dean “Little Man” and Dean's chest puffed out proudly whenever he did it. Sam slept in Mary's room. He was still weaning and could scream to the high heavens when he was hungry. Sometimes Dean would switch. He liked the baby, even though he insisted it was smelly and a crybaby. He tottered behind Mary, stoically guarding his position as the helper. And, sometimes, when Dean didn't think that anyone was looking or he was too tired to care, he'd climb into his mother's lap and silently pander for the blatant affection he never felt comfortable asking his father for. 

Mary gave it to him, running slender fingers through Dean's hair as he followed her hand like a neglected cat. She was getting so thin towards the end. 

They should have seen it coming. 

***

Gabriel let himself back into Sam's room quietly, being sure to hold the door so it wouldn't click loudly and give him away. Away for what, Gabriel wasn't sure. He'd already given himself away in all the things that mattered. His dignity. His fucking sanity. 

“I thought it was a dream.” It was Sam, on the bed, unmoved from where Gabriel left him, except bright hazel eyes wide open and finding him, even in the darkness. “I woke up and you weren't here and I thought it was all a dream.” Gabriel shook his head. He didn't even know how well Sam could see him. “Come back to bed.” 

“Yeah, ok.” Gabriel kicked off his shoes and padded over to the bed. 

The room still smelled like sex and sweat, the scent only getting more pungent as he slipped between the covers. Their smell. It was moist and musky with the sour sting of come that settled into his nostrils. It was too familiar, too obscene. He hated it. But he couldn't make himself pull away, couldn't turn from Sam's hot skin, bitter smelling breath, reeking of sleep and BO and whiskey. It was the grossest smell that was already starting to chub him up. Leave it to Gabriel to only get turned on by the things he hated. Even in sex he couldn't really like himself. 

Sam didn't seem to mind the smell at all. 

“What are you doing here?” Sam asked softly, but he tucked his head back into Gabriel's stomach, waiting for Gabriel to resume his petting. Gabriel did. 

“You called.” Gabriel repeated, remembering the cold feeling, like someone put an icyhot patch on his stomach, making him sweat and shiver, let his mind run wild with images of Sam, strewn out on the bed, facedown, sheets tangled around his hips, drool and a little blood on the hotel linens beneath him. Cold to the touch.

That was how Gabriel had found John. 

“I called a lot of times before tonight.” Sam continued. Blissfully unaware of how John had looked so glassy and blank on that bed. Gabriel couldn't get the idea out of his head, John had just slept like he'd slept for fifty some years and one night... just one night... “I called so many times before and you never picked up. I left you messages too.”

“Yeah. I got them. I listened to them.”

“Really? All of them?”

“Yeah, Sam.” Gabriel sighed, “I didn't... I didn't know what to say. I just wanted it to disappear. And then I thought you were going to... to... ” Gabriel trailed off, his fingers stopping in Sam's hair 

Sam lifted his head up and looked Gabriel in the eye. 

“I couldn’t... not. Made me crazy to think of you like that.” Gabriel picked at the buttons on his shirt. Sam was naked in the bed beside him. Naked and huge and beautiful and dangerous. Warm and alive. 

“Why'd you stay?” It had occurred to Gabriel as he was walking out to the parking lot. He had his keys. He had his wallet. He knew Sam wasn't suicidal and yet the idea came and passed without much trouble. Gabriel shouldn't be here. None of this was right. But none of that had seemed to matter because he just walked right past his car and back into this smelly room with this giant. 

“I... just... Sam...”

“Gabriel, do you love me?” Sam was propped on his elbows now, staring right at him, giving him no place to hide. “I wasn't lying earlier.” Sam murmured, “I do think I really love you. Sorry.” 

Gabriel couldn't imagine sex with anyone else after Sam. Couldn't imagine any place he'd rather be. Being in Sam's bed was like balancing on a razor, humiliation and hate right up against love. And probably the most lethal kind of love ever discovered by man; hot, obsessive, filthy, wrong love.   
Gabriel had been so numb for so long. Maybe the word was lonely. He'd thought he'd lived his whole life without anyone noticing. Sam had noticed. 

“Maybe.” Gabriel admitted. “Maybe I do.”

***

They had Mary's wake on a cloudy afternoon. 

Dean seemed torn between crying and scratching at his tie. He ended the wake with a dramatic bout of both, screaming and kicking and ripping it off surrounded by all of the mourners. Ellen was the one to grab him by his arm and lead him out to the car. Shushing him and clutching her colicky daughter as they hurried out of the room. John stood by the door, looking exhausted and obviously wishing he could go too. But just at that moment, a big bald man in a bolo tie stepped forward to offer his condolences and John's attention was forced back to the present and the idea that he was now in this alone. 

Ever since that afternoon, John never really seemed to shake that look of being all alone, even when he was surrounded by people with the best of intentions. 

Gabriel followed Ellen out, though he knew he wouldn't be much use to her and her unofficial position as the child wrangler. Dean was the only one he felt comfortable with and that was only because Dean was incredibly polite and never questioned his authority. Gabriel managed to keep himself scarce until most of the mourners had filtered out. Dean was at the motel with Ellen and the babies. Most of the other crew members had moved on to a bar or someplace where they could deal with their loss in the best way they knew how; pitchers of beer and bullshit stories. 

Once everyone had left, the mortician gave Gabriel the urn of ashes. One of his best friends, all cold and shiny in her little gray tomb. She had laughed and dreamed and had two babies, created so much more life than Gabriel ever could imagine. And now she was so silent, fit so well into his arms, and then, later, in the bubble wrapped box that Gabriel sent to her parent's home in New Mexico. They hadn't attended the wake. 

The Campbells had all but written them off after John and Mary got hitched. They were a clean cut type. Her father was a former minister turned Christian folk rock artist and her mother learned to play the tambourine and went along with him. They had a whole band with them, Mary being somewhere in the middle of some other, generic blonde pretty faces. Her older sister was seen once on a date with Donny Osmond and that was really their only claim to fame. 

Mary had met John at a state fair. He was in the beer booth, close enough to watch her whole show and the way he told the story, a thousand times over, he couldn't tear his eyes away. She was an angel with a guitar. She was cleaner than he'd ever hoped to know. John was a second generation mechanic. He had grease under his nails and a tattoo. Opposites attract, he'd say. 

But Mary wasn't as clean as she'd seemed. They got married four months before Dean was born. She'd had sparkling cider at her own reception with a big loose wedding dress to hide the bump. The baby came, though, as one ten pound eight ounce bundle of evidence and love. Gabriel hadn't known them then. Perhaps they were happier before Mary's addiction spiraled. Maybe they had always been like they were, hot and cold, light and dark. Wholly incompatible but incomplete without the other. Opposites that attract.

Gabriel only ever heard John talk about it that once. Gabriel came to their motel room the night after the wake. To offer condolences or comfort or, hell, just act as a punching bag. He longed for Dean. Not because he loved the child, though he was quite fond of him, but because Dean was something to focus his attention on, something to feed and comfort and entertain. A burden to shoulder so he'd have something to do besides stare at the walls and wonder if he was feeling enough. 

Sam was fussy. Kicking off his blankets and making small, rodent like noises of discontent as he reached his small arms out of his carrier, grunting in frustration at his own little limitations. He didn't like the formula and took to tugging beards like John's when his father clearly didn't understand and give him what he wanted. He didn't want the powder milk, he wanted the warm breast that he had been nursed on his whole life. Vaguely Gabriel wondered if maybe John wasn't as warm as Mary was. Maybe not as soft. 

Or maybe – he hated to think it but kept it in the back of his mind like some rotted out tooth he couldn't stop probing with his tongue, just to see if that sharp swell of pain was still there-- maybe there was something in that milk, tainted from his mother's teat. Something inside that baby that wasn't like normal children, something in his body that craved it. Maybe Sam was screwed from the start, poison in his blood, an addiction in his veins that he never had a fighting chance against. 

He didn't know what to bring. Food seemed irrelevant since there had been a truly obscene amount of that at the wake. Plus it wasn't like they had a fridge or a freezer in their two bed motel room. No place to store the things to cushion the mourning. All the casseroles in the world wouldn't keep with the way John and his boys lived their lives. 

So Gabriel brought a coloring book for Dean and a bottle of Jack Daniels for John.

John grunted a “thanks” when he got it, and let Gabriel into their room. Gabriel sat on Dean's bed while Dean took the coloring book and spread out on the dinette table. Sam spit out his pacifier and kicked his sock off in his carrier. 

John poured both him and Gabriel a strong shot of whiskey before settling down across from him, resting his elbows on the sides of his knees, hanging his head between his shoulders. 

“So.” Gabriel began when it was clear that John wasn't going to start out. That was fair enough, Gabriel supposed. But he didn't exactly know what to do here. 

John stood suddenly, walking across the room to Sam and putting the sock back on him. Dean dropped the coloring book where it was and trotted over to get the bottle of formula. Dean always had coveted his position as the big brother, the baby helper. 

And it wasn't till Dean tried it, held the bottle to Sam's mouth that the baby reluctantly took the plastic nipple and suckled. 

“When he stops eating, Dean,” John said warily, “Stop feeding him, got it?” 

“Ok, Dad.” 

John walked back over to the bed, sat heavily down across from Gabriel and drank his whiskey in a single swallow. 

“Thanks, Gabe,” he said, wincing around the bite of it. 

Gabriel looked over to Sam and Dean. They looked too big in this small motel room. Gabriel took a sip and looked across at John. 

“I can help you, tomorrow, find a bigger place. Just some place to... Crash, I guess.” 

“Nah.” John said, “Nah, Gabriel. What's the point of... what's the point of stopping the tour, throwing all this away?”

“I think... I think that she would have wanted--”

Gabriel was cut off as John gave him a half grin, baring his teeth but in the politest way he could. 

“Gabe, you've got no right.” John said slowly, “To tell me what my wife wanted or what she was like. We were a family, and you weren't a part of it. You ain't family and you ain't even really a friend, so butt out, Gabe. Don't you tell me I didn't know my wife. Don't you tell me what she wanted, because I know. Woman couldn't be normal for a damn minute, couldn't stand the boredom of it. She took me on tour, she taught me to live like her so don't you fucking tell me to take that away from her boys. That freedom. She wanted this, she wanted travel and freedom and she made a deal with a devil the day she stuck a needle in her arm. She's dead, so don't you dare tell me or my boys that we didn't know her.”

“John, I--”

“It's getting' late.” John said suddenly. “Gotta get my boys to bed soon.”

“I'll go, then.”

“Sounds good.” John was already heaving himself up..

Gabriel stopped at the door, turned to say something. Maybe he was going to apologize. Say something about how Mary did love him. About how the boys were lucky to have him. Hollow words that didn't mean anything anyway. Mary was dead, whether or not she loved him. John was all the boys had, whether or not he was the best candidate. 

It didn't matter anyway. Nothing Gabriel said mattered anyway. 

He wasn't family. He wasn't even a friend. 

***

“Oh, fuck” Sam was moaning, his hot, sour breath tangled in Gabriel's hair, in his face, in his head and he couldn't step back. Couldn't stop if he wanted to.

And it was pretty fucked that he didn't even want to. 

Sam's hands were above his head, holding the headboard like they were tied there. Gabriel was pitched over him, naked chest to Sam's naked chest. Gabriel had one of Sam's knees on his shoulder, one hand between Sam and the sheet, feeling him there. Feeling the hole where Sam would let him fuck him. 

Gabriel pulled away, reached for more of the lube he bought when he was out, walking around, walking past his car and his last hope of leaving this whole ordeal in one piece. The lube sat on the bedside table, with the cigarette and lighter he had gotten, three sins purchased from a crater faced teenager under too bright lights at a Weidel's Gas Station, the only one within walking distance of the-by-the-highway motel. 

Nothing about this was romantic. It was simply inevitable. 

Sam whined, thin and pretty as Gabriel's finger breached him. The knee Gabriel held trembled. The hands clutching the headboard slipped. But Sam laid out and open, an invitation on a razor's edge and it was so impossibly hot that Gabriel thought he might explode. 

“Kiss me, kiss me” Sam pleaded. Gabriel granted his wish but used the distraction to slide his finger further up, further into the vacuum seal of Sam's body. “Oh fuck” Sam gasped into his mouth, “Fuck, feel so full. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.” 

Gabriel was getting a general idea of what Sam wanted, what he needed from this whole experience. He needed to be fucked. Rough. Harsh and unloving. Merciless. His own personal penance for all his misdeeds. The rape, the fights, the tantrums. Every dirty thing Sam said, every hateful thing he'd done, Sam wanted to pay for it all in pillow biting, sweaty sheet wrinkling sex. He wanted to fuck all his sins away. 

Gabriel got it. Sort of. He had once wanted to fuck into feeling something at all. It wasn't so different. 

Gabriel couldn't fuck him yet. Not tonight, not in the way Sam wanted. But Gabriel could slide another finger in, could twist those fingers and watch Sam arch and roll his head like a puppet as Gabriel pulled his strings. 

Sam was so... responsive. The boy'd always been one to wear his heart on his sleeve, but Gabriel couldn't help but be entranced as he watched ever twirl of his finger tremor up Sam's body like a ripple in the lake. “Harder, harder, fuck me, fuck me,” Sam was murmuring, delirious. Gabriel thrust his two fingers up, shoving to the hilt of his hand, jack hammering as fast as his arm would allow, hard enough to make Sam's balls bounce like jello against his rigid cock. It was so much, so hard, and Sam's first night of penetration. Tears fell down the sides of his cheeks, rolling down his face, against his pillow.

“Don't stop, harder. Jesus, please, fuck me, Gabriel, fuck me fuck me fuck me.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Gabriel?” 

“Mmm?” 

“My, ah, my card is gonna... Max out soon. I'm not gonna be able to stay here another day.” 

Gabriel put the plastic fork he was using down and took a swig of beer before looking over it at Sam. 

“Yeah, I figured that might happen.” he sighed, putting the food onto the tiny, chipped bedside table . The room was lit in a garish, yellow light from the lamp on Sam's side of the bed. It had been some time since Sam had actually seen the daylight. 

They'd been in the motel room, cramped and ripe as it was becoming for almost three full days; rotating in series of sex, sleep and eating. They took turns getting up and getting food, Sam usually going out late or at night, walking to the gas station across the street or the Chinese place on the other side of the block. The food tasted like cardboard and, luckily for Sam, cost about as much. The important thing was that they were open twenty four hours a day. 

They never strayed far from the motel and neither went at the same time. There was this unspoken truce between them, fragile and heavy at the same time. Something would change if they left the motel. If they went out to eat like a real couple, sat across from each other and shared dessert. It'd be like a normal date for a normal couple who had love that looked like the movies. Stolen glances and shy smiles. Flirting and laughing like it was something beautiful and happy. Sam didn't envy them, but he didn't trust their eyes or their words or their fucking presence int his thing that he and Gabriel had built on a foundation of stacked cards. 

So Sam would go in the cover of night, afraid of the looks of strangers that he couldn't avoid in broad daylight. He was tall and fit and people gave him second glances, same as they had since he was thirteen and puberty began to make itself known. Sam didn't think he could stomach the attention, not now, now when he was a shell of a normal person, so far removed from what the rest of the world was feeling. How could anyone else possibly understand? Sam was in the worst kind of love. Sometimes Sam thought that the love of his Dad's life wasn't his mother, but a whiskey bottle. Sam wondered if that might be easier and ultimately less destructive than this thing in his heart for Gabriel. Every time Sam looked beside him on the bed, or watched Gabriel walk out of the bathroom, he was surprised. Sam was twisted and hateful and hurtful and cruel. He had no idea what Gabriel was. 

But every time Gabriel left the room to get food by himself, he left his car keys on the table in Sam's plain sight. It was a promise that Gabriel was going to come back. 

And even with that, Sam was constantly surprised to see him return. 

“So...” Sam scraped the bottom of his grease splotched box of Lo Mein with a chopstick, watching the wood twirl with the noodle, “So, “   
He tried again, “So... what now?” 

“What do you want to do?” Gabriel asked. 

Sam wasn't expecting that. He looked up.

“We can go to another motel or--” Gabriel exhaled and looked up at the ceiling while he searched for the way to say it, “Or... maybe an apartment.” 

Sam felt reality like a sock to the gut; this half life they'd been living, this shadowed existence in their dirty sheets couldn't last forever. But for some reason, Sam hadn't thought to imagine that he would survive this. There was something fundamental in Sam's existence that he somehow thought he'd leave behind. Maybe that something was Gabriel himself. 

“An... an apartment?” Sam asked the wall behind Gabriel's head. 

“It seems like the next logical step.” Gabriel said slowly. Sam couldn't tell if he was looking at him. He doubted it. 

“Since when did logic come into play?” Sam muttered. Gabriel snorted his agreement. 

“What do you want, Sam?”

Sam thought for a moment. An apartment meant... stability. It meant he'd need to get a job. He'd need to pay his rent and his bills. He'd need to buy food with more forethought than a single night ahead of time. He'd need to buy furniture and dishes and laundry soap and trash bags. He'd need to function. For some reason, Sam hadn't thought about functioning normally since Gabriel walked into his room, pushed him onto his back and...

“What will you do?” Sam asked quietly, “If I get an apartment... what will happen with...” Sam didn't dare say “us.” 

Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck, he crossed his legs, then uncrossed them just to cross them again. 

“What do you want, Sam?” Gabriel asked again, so softly that it was almost vulnerable. Above and beyond anything else, Sam couldn't comprehend that. 

“I feel like I've been living in a dream. I don't know... how to keep … this when I go out there.” 

Gabriel cleared his throat and looked down at his shoes. “Ok. Gotcha.” He said. 

“I don't want you to leave, Gabriel.” Sam said finally. 

Gabriel's shoulders dropped. “Ok, Sam.” He said again. 

Sam would never be able to tell which news he seemed to take worst; the idea that Sam was done with him or the idea that he wasn't nearly finished yet. 

They sat in silence again, their food containers picked through and abandoned. The tacky moist flavor of beer danced in Sam's mouth as he scooted back onto the bed. 

These sheets were a lost cause, so Sam threw them to the side, placing either ankle on the far corners of the mattress. 

“Come here.” Sam asked quietly. He put his quarter full beer on the floor, his hands above his head, as was their position. “Come touch me, Gabriel” 

Gabriel drained his beer as he stood, placing the bottle on the table before slowly stalking towards Sam on the bed. Sam spread his legs further. 

Gabriel kneed up onto the mattress, bookended between each of Sam's long legs. He reached to the floor, lifted what remained of Sam's beer to his lips, and drained that too. 

Gabriel started on Sam's pants. Sam loved it when Gabriel undressed him, when his eyes roamed down his body, when his hands unwrapped him. 

Gabriel finally pulled Sam's pants off, letting Sam sit up and remove his own shirt as Gabriel got naked. Sam loved Gabriel's body, all the way from his soft tummy to the flecks of grey in Gabriel's pubic hair. He loved Gabriel's cock; modest and uncut but with a perfectly shaped head that flushed the purest shade of pink when it was hard. 

Gabriel caught Sam staring. 

“Sam,” he murmured, “Sam, I want you to touch me this time.” 

“Fuck,” Sam exhaled, “Fuck, yeah, ok.” Sam sat up suddenly, Gabriel still between his legs, and Sam rested his hands onto Gabriel's hips. 

Gabriel closed his eyes and breathed deeply, but didn't push Sam away. Sam's fingers trailed down, the tips of his fingers brushing across the cleft of Gabriel's ass while Sam's thumbs extended all the way around Gabriel's flanks to tickle the very outside of his happy trail. 

“God, you're beautiful,” Sam murmured, his eyes captivated by the blushing erection as it rose from the brunette forest of Gabriel's lap.   
But Sam's hands didn't travel there, as much as they were trembling to. He stroked his hands back up Gabriel's sides, to his waist and his ribs. Gabriel shivered when Sam raked his fingernails over the front of his chest, teasing and scratching the purple pink nipples in the speckles of chest hair across Gabriel's body. So Sam leaned forward and kissed a nipple at random, just breathing hot breath over it and flicking it with his lower lip, groaning as he felt it harden beneath his mouth. 

Sam was good at sex. 

He'd had a lot of lovers before Jess. Girls that hung around tour vans. Co-eds that found him at parties, tall and pretty as he was. He had watched Dean, even when he pretended that he hadn't and he didn't care. He listened to Dean talk dirty with the other guys on the crew, comparing notes about girls and teasing and getting someone to come off of his fingers or his mouth or his cock. 

Sam studied sex like he studied for class. He found an efficient system for getting a girl wet and getting a girl off. Sam had mastered sex like he had mastered Advanced Chemistry in his junior year. 

But this with Gabriel... it wasn't sex. Sam had never been a religious man, had stopped believing when he couldn't pray away his father's drink or Dean's disdain. He couldn't pray hard enough to do anything at all, so he gave the whole mess up. 

But if ever Sam were to have a religious experience, it'd be in this dirty bed, with this man old enough to be his father. He'd never not had a plan of action, a moment that he waited for to turn her over and plow her slow and hard until she was rising up to meet him. But here, in this bedroom, Sam felt something pure and beautiful course through him, lightening the shame from his heart and filling it with this innocence. This place he'd never been before, this purity of lust, or sensuality or simply fucking. Gabriel in his arms, under his tongue was salvation. Sam was good at sex, but sex had never been good until Gabriel. Until this minute, until he could be filled with the divine purpose to fulfill him. Gabriel. 

Sam's hands were officially groping now, and Gabriel didn't seem to mind at all. He was a quiet lover and so Sam read the language of his body, the arch of his spine, the set of his shoulders as he towered over Sam, crowding him back against the bed so that Sam was laid out like a feast. 

Gabriel reached over Sam's head to the bottle of lube by the lamp, letting his glistening cock brush against Sam's and making both of their breath catch. On instinct, Sam reached down to take both of their cocks in hand, to make them both feel good, maybe even make them come at the same time. 

But Gabriel caught Sam's wrist as it headed south, everything in his posture changing so fast it made Sam blink. Gabriel didn't say a word but everything in his body left little to be misunderstood. 

_Back off. Don't touch. Don't hurt me.  
Again. _

And like that, Sam felt reality wollop him once more. 

This wasn't a temple to their shared sin. There was nothing holy in the grip of Sam's hands on Gabriel's flesh or the art of Gabriel's skin against his. 

There was no redemption. No matter how hard Sam prayed, how hard he tried to forget, there was no forgiving the things Sam had done.   
They were fucking in a dirty motel room. There was traffic outside and the sounds of people laughing by the pool and there was nothing sacred about the yellow 30 watt bulb in the lamp beside his bed. It was just the sound of skin on skin and the constant battle to forget all the ways they'd regret this someday. 

Gabriel seemed to register Sam's sudden reluctance, so he placed Sam's hand on his ribs. Sam pretended that this was enough to make him feel like this might be right or natural or pure again. 

Sam was getting used to the feeling of fingers inside of him, of Gabriel's trick of holding his hand like a shot gun, two, even three fingers in Sam's body and his thumb free to massage Sam's taint while pumping inside of him. Gabriel was good at sex too. 

“I think you can fuck me now,” Sam said, desperate for that feeling again, that feeling of making Gabriel sigh and moan and use Sam's body like the gift that Sam wanted it to be. Sam wanted a inkling of that feeing of divine purpose gain. 

Sam wanted that feeling of purpose again, just for a moment, even if it wasn't a real moment. 

He expected Gabriel to shake his head, or to pretend he didn't hear like all the other times Gabriel finger fucked him like this. 

But this time, Gabriel said, “Yeah, I think you're right” and pulled his fingers out of Sam's body. And before Sam's eyes, a miracle occurred as Gabriel stroked his shaft with the same lubed up fingers from Sam's ass. 

“Are you going to use a condom?” Sam whispered.

Gabriel paused mid stroke. “Would you like me to?”

“Please don't... I want to feel all of you, your cock, your come, all of it inside of me.” Sam spread his legs so far he was sure they'd break off. “Fuck me” Sam murmured like he had a million times before. Like he had been praying for since he'd been old enough to want those sorts of things. 

The push of Gabriel's head against his hole was the sweetest pain, the most beautiful test of his body. And Sam passed, granted Gabriel's cock entrance and Gabriel shuddered. “Haven't topped in years,” Gabriel crooned, “God, this is heaven.” 

“Jesus, yeah,” Sam matched his tone and, once Gabriel had given his body a moment to adjust, Sam matched Gabriel's pace, stroke for stroke, too. “Christ almighty, oh lord, fuck, yes,” Sam cried through gritted teeth. It hurt, there was no denying that. 

But Sam had learned to love the hurt, to crave the pain that meant Gabriel could fit his fingers, his cock into him. Sam wanted to be his vessel. He wanted to be Gabriel's canvas. He wanted to be everything Gabriel could ever want because that was the only way he felt free of the shame and hate and sin of his whole fucking life. 

“Please, God, yes.” Sam sighed as Gabriel picked up the speed of his thrusts. 

***

Sam came out of the shower to find Gabriel out of the room. Gabriel's keys stood firmly as a sign of solidarity on the table by the door, so Sam tried not to worry too much. 

The fact was that, as much as Sam feared the way that they'd be received when they walked out the door and they had to deal with the reactions of everyone who saw them together and guessed what they were to each other. And, selfish and immature as it was, Sam feared that the intensity of their coupling, of their history and magnetism would lose a bit of it's mystery and shine once Sam introduced Gabriel as his boyfriend or his husband or maybe, even, his friend. Or, perhaps, Sam wouldn't introduce Gabriel at all. Perhaps Gabriel would leave him once they saw each other in the light of day and realized how melodramatic their coupling was. 

It was dark when Gabriel came back into the room. He picked up Sam's keys off of the table and threw them to him. 

“We can't be in this room anymore. Pack up, we need to go.” 

“What? Where are we... ?”

“I found an apartment in town. We can talk more about it there.” 

Sam packed up his scant belongings, following Gabriel around the room and, finally, outside. 

Miraculously, the world didn't end. Nobody stuck their heads out their windows and stared. No one yelled hateful things at them as Gabriel shoved their shared belongings into Sam's trunk and slammed the hood. 

Gabriel even looked the same. Maybe he smelled a bit less pungent having been freed from the stale room for the better part of the day, but he was the same. He seemed shorter, Sam supposed, with the big wide world around him. 

But he didn't seem to be going anywhere, didn't seem ready to leave Sam behind and drive away, acting as though this whole thing had never happened. 

The apartments that Sam pulled up to in the suburbs of Nashville were single story red brick buildings. Along the whole wall there were five navy blue doors with tarnished faux gold numbering. Gabriel led Sam to the one on the far left. Sam could hear techno music blaring from his new neighbor and smelled the strong stab of weed emanating from the cracked window. 

Gabriel opened the door to a reasonably sized studio apartment. The sound of techno became a gentle hum of base though the walls once Gabriel shut the door behind them. 

The first thought Sam had was “white.” Everything was white from the freshly painted drywalls to the white tile counters in his bleach white kitchen. The linoleum had clearly once boasted a pale blue diamond pattern that had surrendered to years of mop water and wear and became a sort of washed out imitation of itself as it blended into the floor around it. In one corner of the room sat a fresh white mattress on the floor. 

“It's not much” Gabriel said as Sam silently inspected his new home. “But the rent is $400 a month and that's with utilities included. I couldn't find anything furnished so... There isn't any air conditioning but it isn't that big so a fan should do the job.”

Sam suddenly noticed the pile of plastic bags in the corner of the kitchen counter, “Did you go to Target for me?” 

“Uh, yeah.” Gabriel muttered, struggling to read Sam's tone to see how Sam was reacting. Sam was sort of struggling to see how he was reacting too. “Hope that's ok.”

“You didn't tell me you were doing this.” Sam said finally. “Why didn't you... I mean... you just sort of took control of my life... again... I mean you used to do this all the time and I fucking hated it...” 

“Oh, I didn't think of it like that.” Gabriel's tone became soft, “I'm sorry... I didn't mean to--”

“To what, exactly?” Sam rounded on him, “What exactly were you thinking?”

“I thought--”

“You thought I could;'t take care of myself?” 

“Yes.” 

Sam's hands dropped from where they were balanced on the counter. “Excuse me?” He could feel the blood boiling to his fists, to his head so fast that it made his thought blur together. 

“You came the fuck out here to get some closure and some help and then you were living in that motel for weeks until you _literally ran out of money._ ” Gabriel matched him, standing on the other side of the counter and not backing down from Sam's temper. 

God, did Sam want to hold him down and fuck him. Fuck him into seeing straight, fuck him into submission, fuck him so that they forgot to fight and ended up covered in come instead. 

This was dangerous territory. 

But Sam knew, darkly, that this dangerous edge of his temper was the only thing he knew with absolute certainty. His father, his brother, his own fucking name never felt so familiar as this indignant rage running through him. 

Sam knew that he didn't want to be like this. But he also knew that, in this moment, he didn't care. 

“You came here for help, I'm helping, so put your hackles down.” 

“Think you can boss me around?” Sam growled, “Take care of me like I'm a kid?” 

“Yes,” Gabriel said, and finally there was some surrender in his tone, “That's the only fucking way I know how to treat you, Sam. This is the only way I know how to take care of you, so close the horses mouth and accept the damn gift.” 

“Jesus,” Sam groaned. He started unbuckling his belt, pulling his pants down and kicking them off as he walked toward the fresh, bare mattress. Gabriel didn't seem to know what to do, so Sam grabbed his bag and dug for the half empty lube in the bottom of it. He slicked up two fingers and started playing with his ass on his knees, with his back facing Gabriel. “Fuck me like I said I wanted you to when you first asked. Get over here and fuck me like I've _always_ wanted you to. God, you make me so mad. I need you in me.” 

Gabriel took a step forward, but hesitated. “Fuck, don't just stare!” Sam cried out, “Fuck me, please, fuck me. This is how I've wanted it since I was a fucking kid.”

“Jesus, Sam,” Gabriel sighed as his hands gripped Sam's hips, pulling his cheeks apart with his thumb, “Jesus I don't even understand what you do to me.” 

Only seconds after the sound of a zipper, Sam felt himself breached. 

They christened Sam's new bed with the sex of their fight, of their hate and everything they carried between them. 

Sam could cry from the righteousness of it all.


	10. Chapter 10

Gabriel had always had a natural gift with the idea of reality. 

Since boyhood, he'd possessed an ability to loosen his hold, let it slip through his fingers and his mind settle on something else -- usually Harrison Ford-- when things were too dull or too hard or too big to think of. Taunting, teenage calls of _“suck my cock, fag boy”_ in the echoes of a boys locker room and John's general thorniness when he was sober long enough to get the shakes, were nothing but merely the background noise of someone's life if Gabriel wanted it to be. Maybe Gabriel couldn't figure out what he wanted, never had a lover long enough to truly love, never did anything he was supposed to do and never had the time to figure out what he wanted to do. But, at least, he didn't have to feel it, live it, all the time. 

If he looked too long, it might look like a life wasted. Luckily, Gabriel didn't have to look at all and it was hardly any trouble. That was how he supposed so much time had slipped by. 

He and Sam fucked a lot for those first few days. 

Sam on his back, Sam on his knees, Sam bent over the too cloroxed counter of the kitchen. 

Gabriel had let himself be so absorbed into something, so present in this whirlwind of Sam and sex. It was a comfort, maybe, that Sam still couldn't take his hands, his eyes off Gabriel even after they left that motel where grime framed their whole experience, creeping up the walls, along the shower tiles, around the mirror so Gabriel looked the way he felt. 

Like he was trapped in one of Mary's heroin veined dreams, feverish and intoxicating and comforting, after a time. Comforting to let Sam's hands slip around his hips and chest and drag him down to the mattress, to the floor. Even to the shower that one, ill fated time. Their height difference made the whole ordeal rather anticlimactic and almost embarrassing until Sam sunk to his knees. 

He laced his fingers behind his back, looked up at him and, slowly - so damn seductivley that Gabriel was sure he'd burn from the inside out-- and let Gabriel fuck his parted, spit shined lips.

They fought a lot those first days too.

The power structure of their sex wasn't lost on Gabriel. Sam had his own demons he was fucking himself senseless to resolve or simply to forget. Their sex was like some kind of Freudian case study, a Lolita sort of dance they had where Sam was eternally the virginal and the young while Gabriel held him, taught him, guided him through their sex. Sam craved the fetish of his own exploitation and Gabriel craved Sam. That same power structure, however, was utterly lost when they were both dressed. 

The reality of the situation, the part that had never been Gabriel's friend to begin with, was that Sam was a full grown man and -- fucking mess that he was-- did not appreciate Gabriel paying for things or coming home with new bags from the dollar store down the block. Sam didn't like being babied, but at the same time the mere mention of a shower curtain or more than one towel made something in Sam's brain switch off. Something about the mere insinuation of the outside world made Gabriel the most magnetic man on Earth to Sam. He drifted to him, orbited, because Gabriel still flinched unconsciously when Sam stepped too quiet or touched too fast. So Sam would wait until Gabriel invited him, almost begging Gabriel to touch him whenever Gabriel was thinking about the logistics of their survival; food, clothes, soap. 

Sam seemed to have no desire to find a job or even leave his apartment and if Gabriel was talking about something besides sex, Sam was only half paying attention. 

The word, “bender” got stuck in his mind. Gabriel thought about Mary in his bed, bruised blue rivers all down her arms and John sitting on the fender of his hood, throwing back Pabst like there was a prize at the bottom of each can. 

Maybe Sam was born to this, had some sort of natural inclination to this sort of need to escape. It was written in his DNA, pumping through his veins as his mother and his father's blood swirled together to create him. 

Sam wasn't like Gabriel. He could't go back and forth from reality and whatever groundhog-day dream sequence they were living. Wake up, fuck, eat, fuck, drink a few tall boys, shower, fuck and then Sam would fall asleep with a book of some sort under his face, all sprawled out and simply... existing. Sam seemed incapable of progressing past what they were doing now, like a song, a life stuck on repeat. 

It was terrifying if Gabriel thought about it, but, of course, he didn't. 

Sam had never been able to have a foot in both worlds, maybe even resented Gabriel for trailing evidence of a world, of responsibilities from the outside in with him. Saw them as threats to his current life, the comforting bubble Sam made for himself in that apartment. 

And Gabriel preferred it in a sense. The idea that there was this physical place of sensuality and poverty, rolling around on bare mattresses and showering with bar soap for shampoo, that was pristine from the world beyond it's walls. The world that would see them, watch them pantomime the reality of their situation, the history of their lives in sexual positions and never in words. They'd have words to give them. They'd call Sam sick, they'd call Gabriel predatory. And these labels, these titles would break them. 

Gabriel could feel it wearing thin, could feel himself losing weight, growing pale, looking like a junkie, like an addict to something that wasn't real. 

An addict of non-reality itself.

Reality, however, intruded onto them in the form of a text message. 

Gabriel didn't tell Sam where he was going, said something vague about a liquor store and Sam let him off with an unsuspicious wave, turning back to his book. 

Gabriel parked behind the gleaming black Impala in his mother's driveway.

***

Castiel was standing in the hallway when Gabriel let himself into his mother's house, looking over the pictures on the walls. An only child, for certain, as Castiel never knew to speak the loudest or learned to grow a hard shell to deflect the muttered resentment all siblings dish out on each other. Castiel was quiet and sensitive, his big eyes ghosting almost enviously over all the pictures of Gabriel and his brothers thrown together, climbing over one another, pushing and shoving and constantly in competition. 

Castiel looked like his father, Gabriel's aunt's husband. Tall and dark haired, his lean and almost willowy frame was Novak through and through, but those bright blue eyes of his looked like kinder versions of his father's. Christopher Milton was like a man made of ice and stone, cruel and cold and unyielding in the slightest when his youngest and only boy preferred men. 

He was still a great kid, a great christian and a kind soul but Christopher Milton never got past that part where his son wouldn't pass on that Milton name. He said he was disgusted that Cas made love like a _woman_ , said it like it was the lowest form of life on Earth. 

Cas had called Gabriel's mother, shown up a week later with a black eye and a trashbag full of laundry. A month later, Gabriel picked him up from a bus station. 

He understood why Cas would want to make himself scarce, his mother was used to doting on five boys and her motherly instincts were probably set on full throttle when Cas showed up on her doorstep like a wounded bird. Cas never did great with too much attention, had a habit of rolling his shoulders up to his ears and looking at the floor, trying to be smaller and hide those eyes before someone took notice. 

But, Gabriel figured, he got tired of looking at the ground and glanced up only to catch Dean's eye. 

And the rest, they say, is history. 

Gabriel could hear his mother cooing over Dean in the kitchen. Dean, unlike Cas, needed twice the attention and could stomach three times the amount of sandwiches. 

“You look like shit.” His cousin said.

“Right back at ya, cowboy,” Gabriel said, partly out of reflex. 

It wasn't true though, Cas looked great. He'd started looking great since he began sneaking out of Dean's motel room at four in the morning. Brighter, more confident, so fucking in love it made Gabriel feel things that he simply chose not to look at. 

“You never called.” Castiel said simply. “You promised you would and then you didn't.” 

“God, Cas.” Gabriel sighed, “You have no idea. I hardly have any idea. God, it's good to see you though.” 

Castiel smiled tightly, but cocked his head to the side, “Your mother hasn't seen you for a while either. We just... we just worried. You never said goodbye. Just left a note.” 

“Yeah,” Gabriel said lamely, “Yeah, I did.”

“Dean says Sam is all temper and talk. Didn't think he'd actually... ” When Gabriel only looked at him with big eyes he continued, “The people in the room next door, heard everything. They almost called the cops. Wish they had.” 

“Shit.” was all Gabriel could say. It was so much more real, so much more damning when everyone would know, know what Sam did, what Gabriel tolerated. And what Gabriel came back to, threw himself into. Now everyone would know how he was. 

“Fuck.” Castiel almost reached for him, Gabriel could practically see his cousin's mind whirring. He could see himself reflected in Cas' eyes. 

Thin, gaunt, pathetic. Castiel thought he was mourning, thought Sam had broke him. What would he say when he found out that Gabriel broke himself? But Cas wasn't saying it yet, beautifully oblivious as his cousin was to all the ways that Gabriel had been broken before Sam ever laid a finger on him. “Fuck, Gabriel, you should have told me. You should have... fuck. Fuck, I'm so sorry. We should... fuck, what? Call the cops? I just... Dean will understand. He'll have to. You look like shit, Gabriel. He needs to pay for what he did to you.”

Gabriel shook his head violently, throat too tight to tell Cas to not bother. Sam may have been poison but Gabriel knew that going in and drank it up anyway. 

Gabriel didn't know how to tell Cas that it was so, so much worse. 

He might have survived this if it was only in Dallas. If he hadn't heard Sam's voicemail, if he hadn't called every motel in Nashville looking for him. If he'd never been inside of Sam he might have had a chance. But there was something different, now. Something fundamentally blocked in the way Gabriel used to be able to amputate the trauma, the things he couldn't handle all by himself, and forget it happened. When it came to Sam, Gabriel was all out of sorts and really, who did he have to blame for that but himself? 

He might have survived if he'd left it all in that hotel room in Texas but then Gabriel cracked. Broke inside, exploded, burned from the inside out and pushed Sam back onto the bed, slotted between his legs and gave in. 

Gabriel was different now because he knew, for certain, that he wasn't empty inside. That hollowness in his heart he'd devoted his life to ignoring wasn't his defining characteristic anymore. It wasn't God or love or any sort of purpose to be proud of, it was a burning obsession, a binge on skin and sex that turned Gabriel into a rutting animal. 

It was so much worse than before. And so much better. And, god, how could he tell Castiel that he had gotten himself so deep into something he didn't know if he could ever get out. 

Gabriel didn't even know if he could be trusted to try. 

Instead, Gabriel just looked up at Castiel, let Castiel look his fill at Gabriel's sunken eyes and pale skin and the way that his skin was tighter over him than it was before. Even without grime lined mirrors, Gabriel could see how he looked. 

He looked like a junkie. He looked like Mary on a motel bed. He looked like John with trembling hands.

Castiel nodded toward the kitchen, where Dean was entertaining Nora with some grand story of the road with his mouth still full of a ham and swiss sandwich. 

“Abrie!” his mother declared as she saw him. As she took him in. The look on her face was not one of surprise to see Gabriel looking as strung out as he did. Like some ghost of who he was. And, truly, Gabriel knew that there was something he left behind in that motel room with Sam. There was something inside him that never woke up until Sam held him down, until Sam raped him, until Sam yelled and forced Gabriel to be accountable for the life he led without thinking about it. 

In Sam's arms, in Sam's hands Gabriel was just... there. Present. He couldn't shove reality to the back of his mind, could only lay back and take it as Sam dished it out. For better or for worse, Gabriel lived more within his minutes of Sam, his whirlwind of touch and taste and so much sex and sweat the memories themselves blurred together to only leave one thing for certain behind. 

Sam. 

“Abrie,” his mother continued, wiping her hands on her apron and forcing a bright smile onto her face, “Abrie, dear, your friend is looking for his brother. I told them that you were here for a week and then have moved on to someplace else. But, no visitors so to speak.” 

She raised her eyebrows at him, coving for him if he wanted. Laying the groundwork for the lie if Gabriel chose to use it. 

“Gabriel?” Dean asked, standing with big green eyes almost brimming, “God, Gabriel, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.” Dean's voice was thick with tears, almost cracking. “You look, shit, Gabriel, I had no idea he'd do something like that.”

“Dean--” Gabriel shook his head, unable to say how he didn't deserve any of this. This pity and love and comfort.

“Abrie? Let me make you something, alright? Sit down, dear.”

“No, Mom,” 

“Abrie, these young men are looking for someone they love, please sit down and answer their questions.” 

“Gabe, it's cool.” Dean said, his face too tight and pale to be convincing, “We know... we know what happened and we're on your side and... and just... I know this is the worst question to ask and you can hate me if you want. But... it's Sam. I just... I haven't heard from him.”  
Dean looked at the table, his voice so throaty and tight and terrified that Gabriel felt a hundred times worse. “I used to never think he'd do anything... drastic. I never thought he'd hurt himself but then I never thought he was capable of-- of--” Dean couldn't speak and Gabriel glanced pointedly at his mother. Nora, to her credit, was tactfully pretending she couldn't hear. 

“I never thought he'd actually hurt someone either.” Dean finished near a whisper. 

When Dean met his eyes, they were swollen red imitations of Gabriel's own face. Dean, just on the other side of thirty looked fifty at least. His eyes were ringed and his face was hollow, like he hadn't eaten much more than Gabriel had in the past two weeks. He looked lost and exhausted and startlingly like John. 

“I just know he was trying to call you-- we told him not to, told him to leave you be but he insisted.” Castiel cut in for his lover, “I know... he asked me where he could find you. I know he looked. I understand that you probably wanted nothing to do with him but... but... Dean needs to know if he's alive. We are both perfectly aware that you are the last person to ask this of so rest assured that you _are_ the last person we're asking. We've been looking for ages and he's fallen off the map. And, when we find him... then we can see about... taking action.” 

Dean's face was a grim line but he nodded resolutely at Gabriel. This loyalty of theirs was going to kill him. 

“We just want to know if he talked to you and when. That's all.” Cas continued, “Then we'll leave. Never come by again if you don't want.”  
Gabriel's mother placed a sandwich in front of him and rested her hand on his shoulder, “Abrie, dear.” She said softly. To Cas and Dean it probably sounded like she was pleading for him to eat, protective over her youngest son who looked like a sickly pantomime of himself.

But Gabriel could read his mother; and she was telling him to get over himself and tell the truth. 

Sam needed help. Gabriel was enabling him with his money and his body, always eager to fill Sam's cravings whenever and however they came about. It was wearing so thin that Gabriel could practically see through it.

Gabriel took a sigh and excused himself, heading out to the porch. 

He dialed Sam's number and held the phone to his ear.

“Gabriel?” Sam's confused voice bled through the line. Gabriel sometimes texted, asked what kind of food Sam wanted from the thai place down the block or when they didn't have Sam's brand of whiskey. This was the first time Gabriel had talked to Sam on the phone since Dallas. Since before. 

“Hey. Would you meet me someplace?” 

“Uh. I guess. Why?”

“Just... wanted to.” Gabriel supplied lamely. Old Sam might have been suspicious. If Sam were truly himself, in his right mind, he would have questioned further. Gabriel never thought he'd miss it, but something about Sam being so... un-Sam-like was unsettling. Instead, Sam simply said, “Ok” and wrote down the directions Gabriel gave to a pizza place a few miles away. 

When he came back in, Dean and Cas suddenly stopped talking. They looked guilty and shame-faced and it was clear that they thought Gabriel needed the moment alone to collect himself. Gabriel looked down at the table. 

“He's going to be at Two Boots Pizza in about thirty minutes.” Gabriel said. He took a deep breath and continued flatly, “He's been staying in east Nashville, some apartments on sixth street. He doesn't know you'll be there.” 

Dean and Cas looked at each other. 

“So, wait, how do you have his number? The one I have says it's been disconnected.” Dean leaned back and raised his eyebrows. 

“Yeah, he ran out of minutes on the last one so he got a new one.” Gabriel didn't mention the fact that he had paid for it. Had programmed his own number into the contacts. Probably still was the only contact in the phone. 

“I don't understand.” Dean shook his head slowly. “So, he doesn't know he's meeting us, but he agreed to meet you? He's expecting to meet you?” 

“Let's just go,” Castiel placed his hand over Dean's wrist, “We can ask Sam. Let's just go. We need to get there first and we probably shouldn't park the impala in the lot. We should park it in a different lot and walk there so Sam won't see us and bolt. We've worked really hard to find him so let's just go.” 

“But,” Dean looked up at Gabriel, piecing it together, “But, you know where he is. You've known the whole time.”

Gabriel couldn't meet his eye and Castiel urged Dean again. “C'mon, Dean. C'mon.” 

Gabriel pulled his keys from his pocket and tossed them to Cas, “Take my car.”

“You're not coming.” Dean realized, “You're not going to be there for the fall out.” 

“Dean, what's it matter?” Castiel had his hand around Dean's upper arm, pulling him out of his seat, “C'mon. Leave Gabriel be.”

“You know, I always figured Sam was projecting some stuff when he went on about you. You know what he always said? He said you didn't give a fuck. Stuck around as long as we got paid and you'd turn tail if things went south. I always figured he was full of it. Bitter about our Dad and our life but maybe he was right about you.”

“ _Dean!_ ” Cas warned, but it was too late. Dean had already said it and Gabriel had already heard it. And Gabriel had already saw it for what it was; the truth.

“I thought we were family, man. You weren't a Dad or anything but you were supposed to be there. Sam and me were kids and, like it or not, you fucking raised us. And you don't give a shit. This is the only thing I've ever fucking asked you for--. He needs help. He so, fucking obviously, needs help and you have been... what? Hiding him? Talking to him? Fucking.... fucking... I've been going crazy with worry and you've been... Jesus, you... and...what have you been doing? ” 

“Dean! That's enough.” Barked Castiel, “Nora and Gabriel have been good to me and I won't have you yelling at him in her home.” 

That shut Dean up, at least. Too late, however, for Gabriel. He'd been caught out as the weak link and he couldn't ignore it anymore. Not now that Cas and Dean knew, now that they wouldn't let him forget, which he'd been doing so very comfortably for weeks. Easier to pretend that Sam was ok when Sam could look Gabriel in the eyes, could invite Gabriel into his body and so easily go along with the delusion. 

“Abrie, dear, go with them.” His mother said, “You owe that to them. To him.” 

“Sam needs help.” Dean said again, softly. “He quit his job, left his girlfriend, and now this... Gabriel, he isn't ok.”

“I know.” Gabriel said, “Trust me, I know.” 

Castiel loosend his grip on Dean and adjusted the keys in his hands. “Gabriel?” 

“Yeah. Ok. I'll come. I'm coming.” 

 

***

“So.” Dean said after they'd been driving for a while. He sat in the passenger's seat next to Cas who drove. Gabriel sat in the back with his eyes glued out the window. “So,” Dean continued, “You've been talking to Sam.” 

“Yeah.” 

“But... just... why?”

“I don't know, Dean.” Gabriel said, “I honestly have no idea. I can't explain how I feel or why I do the things I do but... I just... I can't stay away from him. He says he needs me and the way he says it... he means it. God, he means it more than anyone else ever has.” 

“So. You've been. With him.”

“Yes.” was Gabriel's half whispered answer. 

“Fuck. Fuck, Gabriel that's messed up. You... you knew him as a little kid. You fucking babysat him and me and, shit, Gabriel, this is fucked up.” Castiel took a leaf out of Nora's book and kept his eyes on the road, like he couldn't hear. But, Gabriel noted, he didn't tell Dean to ease up. “How long have you... been into him?”

“Not until the moment he touched me.” Gabriel murmured, “It wasn't real, nothing was ever going to come of it until he touched me. I swear, Dean. I would have never.” 

“But... but you thought... it occurred to you...”

“That Sam had grown up, grown beautiful? Yes, Dean. I had noticed.” Gabriel sighed, “He always seemed so... troubled.” Dean gave a dry snort at the understatement, “I suppose I related to that. And then... when it happened... he was so obsessed with me. Wanted me so much and I guess I got obsessed with his being obsessed with me.” 

Dean swallowed dryly. “Used to think it was all in his head. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe some of those things he said about you... shit. I'm responsible for him and I let...”

“No, Dean. I let it happen. I... I encouraged it. If anyone is to blame here, it's me. So if you're going to blame someone... blame me.” 

“I do.” 

That one hit Gabriel like a punch. A well deserved punch in the face. “That's fair.” 

Castiel met Gabriel's eyes in the rearview mirror, then looked away quickly. Gabriel went back to staring out the window and they rode the rest of the way in silence. 

 

Sam didn't seem surprised when he walked into the restaurant and met Gabriel's eyes over the back of Dean and Cas' heads at the booth. Part of Gabriel expected him to bolt, smell a trap from a mile away and hit the door running. 

Run back to their apartment, lock the door and get mad, furious and let in cook in the pressure cooker that was Sam's temper. If he had hated Gabriel's high handed-ness in bringing home non-plastic forks and knives then he'd really lose it with this one. He'd go home, finger himself and wait for Gabriel to walk in the door and fuck him, all guts and glory. 

Instead, Sam walked toward them with a confidence Gabriel envied. He sat beside Gabriel at the booth and nonchalantly picked up the menu when he finally said, “So, is this some kind of intervention?” 

“Yes.” Gabriel said softly to the window as he stared out of it.


	11. Chapter 11

Dr. Pamela Barnes worked with her patients from her home.

Sam could hardly think of anything that quite said hick-town, podunk excuse for professionalism than a shrink working out of a single story brick building that was fighting a loosing battle with some honeysuckle on steroids. The vines were creeping up and over the better part of the front porch, though there was a space, hacked away in the general shape of a doorway. But he stood on the porch steps, like he promised he would and waited. 

Cas and Dean had been a united front at the cowboy themed pizza joint that Gabriel had pointed them all in the direction of. It was almost funny, the way that everyone looked at him, dead eyed and wary, surrounded by boots and ropes painted on the walls and a big neon sign that looked like a cactus behind the counter. 

_'Where did you even find this place?'_ he had been dying to ask. _'Who's sick sense of humor is responsible for this?'_ but of course he didn't. Dean wouldn't have this cruel joke in him. Dean was crass and inappropriate but not in this way. Sam doubted Cas was capable of bing funny, either on purpose or by mistake. 

Which left Gabriel. The silent, implicit player in this whole charade. But Gabriel was being hard to read so Sam listened to Cas and Dean.

Castiel pulled Dr. Barnes' business card out of his coat and slid it along the table to Sam. Dean said he'd pay for everything, the sessions, the program, Sam's apartment if he agreed to go. Gabriel didn't say anything at all. 

It was an olive branch; Dean hadn't heard from his brother in a couple of weeks and went crazy, hunted him down. When Sam had left for college, he thought it was the only thing he wanted in the whole world. For someone to notice him missing, to feel his absence since no one ever seemed to feel his presence when he was actually around. He had a fevered dream, half articulated obsession with the thought of Dean and his Dad, feeling wounded by the idea that Sam wasn't there. That they were being punished for not appreciating him enough. It was an eighteen year old's obsession, the kind of fantasy a teenager has when they only know how it feels to hurt and not enough about how it feels to do the hurting. 

Because, at 28, Sam wanted no responsibility for the way Dean's face was sunken into itself, those smile lines at the creases of his mouth threatening to become frown lines if Dean didn't kick back into gear. Short, terse answers and sentences that trailed off at the end. It wasn't anything the way Dean was supposed to be. It was like his brother's entire personality was stalling out. And Sam didn't like it. He didn't like thinking that what he had with Gabriel, the oasis he had finally fucking found in this desert of misery had the sort of consequences that could make Dean look like that. 

And then the fact that Gabriel was there, had set him up then refused to look at him all through lunch. 

Clearly, Gabriel wanted him here. And Sam couldn't refuse both Gabriel and Dean. The love of his fucking life and his only family it; wasn't like Sam had any sort of choice. 

He rang the doorbell again, and this time the chime was met with a chorus of barks. 

It swung open to show a pretty woman in her mid thirties, with dark brown curls pushed from her face by a faded, floral scarf. Though a sagging screen door separated them, Sam could see her and into the house clearly. Her cheeks were pink from the exertion of holding an excitable pack of dogs at bay, her arm around the biggest, barrel chested pit bull, her left leg raised to catch a German Shepard mutt and a poodle. On her other side, a Pomeranian wagged it's tail lazily and stared up at him. 

“Hey,” she said, exhaled more like and smiled a genuine, warm smile up at him, “Hey, you must be Sam. Don't worry, they're all nice.” She turned from Sam for a moment, pointing firmly and saying, _“away from the door!”_ like it was a command they were expected to recognize. Only the leggy Shepard mutt seemed to have any idea what she meant, cocking it's head and needing to be told a second time before she trotted to the orange couch and hopped up. The other three looked blankly and happily up at her, tongues out and mildly interested in her exaggerated gestures. She smiled again and shrugged at Sam, nudging the poodle with her knee while wrapping her hold around the pit bull into a Half Nelson and hoisting the big guy back to make room for Sam to squeeze past the doorway.  
“Gertrude runs the door, so catch her on her way out, would you?” she said, turning away from him and heading inside. Sam looked down at the only remaining dog, the Pomeranian wagging her tail and looking eagerly at turns between Sam and the door frame, ready to make her great escape. True to what Dr. Barnes predicted Sam had only opened the door wide enough to fit a foot through when Gertrude made her move. 

Sam scooped her up under his arm and she licked his face, seeming completely unfazed by being held by strangers and not terribly disappointed that he had foiled her plan. 

“Hey,” Dr. Barnes called from past the doorway. “Sorry, I was just out in the yard with them so they're still a little riled. They'll mellow out in a few. Can I get you some iced tea or a soda or something?”

“Uh,” Sam said, walking in and ducking to avoid hitting his head on the low archway between the front hall and the great room. The common space of the house had a big, open feel to it, and Sam could see Dr. Barnes in the kitchen as she pulled some glasses from the cabinets, “Iced tea would be nice, thanks.” 

She winked at him, “You betcha. Go ahead and have a seat. Pebbles shares pretty good. Watch out for Louis, though.” She gestured in the general direction of a dog bed near the narrow hall where the pit bull had hunkered down and panted leisurely, watching the whole conversation, “He doesn't bite or anything. Just slobbers a lot and takes up all the space.” 

Sam turned to the couch where the big Shepard mix, presumably Pebbles, cocked her ears and thumped her tail as he settled in beside her. He scratched her head as he looked around the small house. 

Three diplomas adorned the walls, verifying Dr. Barnes' credentials and her love of soft rock legend, Snake, as there were multiple framed pictures of her posing with the band, clearly after shows. 

The rest of the house looked like it got hip in the mid seventies and then decided to stubbornly stay that way for good, with a golden shag carpet under Sam's feet and the burnt orange sofa he shared with Pebbles. The walls were wood paneled, but not too oppressive. In fact, despite the fact that Sam felt he'd have to spend most of his time in the house either ducking or stooping to clear doorways, it was a comfortable, unassuming sort of place. Dr. Barnes was tanned and wrinkled around the eyes, making it clear that she preferred her time outside. 

Dr. Barnes came back to the living room with a tray of tea and a box of Wheat Thins that she offered to Sam before pulling out a handful for herself, propping herself in a circular, pea soup colored chair with a spiral notebook on the table beside her. 

“You comfy?” she asked, “I can make Pebbles get off if you want.” 

“No it's fine.” Sam scratched her again, making her lazily close her eyes and rest her head on the couch arm, clearly settling in for a good snooze. “I kind of like it. I like dogs. I always wanted a dog.”

“Yeah? What happened with that?” 

Sam shrugged, turning from Pebbles to Dr. Barnes, “Life on the road, I guess. Obviously, you know, pets aren't the most practical thing... and vets are expensive and stuff. I used to ask for a dog all the time but when I was twelve I sort of... resigned myself to never having one.”

“And that was a big disappointment? Were you angry about that?” 

Sam leaned back against the couch, trying not to sigh. 

It made sense, of course. The entire reason he was here, after all. She was going to ask him about his anger, his misery, his violence and all of it. Of course she had every right. And of course everyone had the right to expect him to be here too. 

He supposed this was how it happened, how therapy worked. There was just something forced about the way she looked at him, ready to study him and cure him and send him on his way. 

Sam was trying to be a good sport. He really was. He didn't like who he had become, he hated how he hated every memory he ever had. This was how you fixed that and how you go about trying to get better and rectify everything he'd done. 

But to have his entire being, his life laid out so clinically... Sam wanted to be a different person in a lot of ways. But something about this felt... lonely. It was just starting to hit him that there was a distinct possibility that he'd be someone else at the end of this. 

And that anger, that indignation, that heat in his veins had always been as faithful as the rising sun. If he lost that... Sam didn't know if he'd even be a person he'd recognize without that. He was a fucked up person, but he'd only ever been a fucked up person. There was this little, irrational thought that was lodged deep in him; what if that's all there was? 

The gravity of where he was hit him now, the idea that he was trying to modify his behavior, rewire his brain... But then, being a whole person, his whole person – rage and sarcasm and a personality built on the foundation of hurt- that wasn't worth the lines on Dean's face. It wasn't worth the way that Gabriel still flinched when he lifted his hand and Gabriel wasn't expecting it. 

Sam shook himself out of it, rubbed his face in his hands and rested his elbows on his knees, looking at his shoes but forcing himself to get with the program. 

“Yes... but not in an outward way... I guess I just was very aware of how little say I had in my own life.” 

“Ok, describe 'outward' to me.” Dr. Barnes tucked her legs under herself in her chair.

“Like, yelling. Breaking stuff. Being upset.”

“Upset in a way that people noticed, that is.” 

“Yeah, I guess.” 

“Sam, did you ever throw tantrums? Yell? Pick fights or get physical?”

“When I was young, no. Um, it wasn't until I was sixteen or seventeen that I started arguing with my Dad a lot. I guess I picked fights with Dean but it never got physical. Well...”

“Not until after your father passed, then.”

Sam shook his head, a lump suddenly forming in his throat. He took a big sniff and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, hard enough that white spots appeared behind his lids. Maybe hard enough that he wouldn't have to feel it yet. Because Sam hadn't really taken the time, gone through the steps, made his peace... It had been almost a month and Sam was still surviving by not thinking about it.

“I'm not ready, yet.” Sam said, a little surprised to hear the words out loud. Random words that sounded out of place in the house, out of context in this room with Dr. Barnes and so out of context with his own thoughts. 

“Ok.” Dr. Barnes said, “Ok.” 

Sam focused back on Pebbles, who had twisted her body in such a way that Sam could get to her chest and neck as he kept scratching her mindlessly. 

“Hey, Sam,” Dr. Barnes said as she let him do that for a minute. Sam didn't look up from the Shepard, but nodded his head in acknowledgement. 

“Would you help me dig up a stump?” 

Sam looked up at her then. 

“I cut down this dogwood a few weeks ago and I still have the stump. You look strong. Wanna help me dig it up?”

“Uh...” Sam paused, he certainly hadn't been expecting that. “Yeah. Sure. Ok.” 

 

*****

 

The dogs had followed them out into the yard, Pebbles clearly believed that Sam was under her charge, always staying nearby and checking in every once in a while after she trotted off to join the others in smelling and running around the grass. It was a small comfort that meant way too much to Sam, proportionally speaking. But it was nice to have an unconditional ally. 

Dr. Barnes -- Pamela -- as she had corrected him after she shuddered at the use of her title, didn't have any sort of fencing that Sam could see, but the dogs never wandered out of eyesight. The dogwood was a big tree, judging by the width of the trunk, but Sam was happy for the task, happy for the sun and for Pamela's attention to be on digging up the roots of the tree instead of staring at Sam, trying to learn him like a specimen. 

They worked for a while, Pamela seeming to have no other clients or meetings as they worked long past Sam's hour. And then, when Pamela offered to have Sam stay for dinner, he agreed readily. 

She left him on the porch as she went in to order a pizza, handing him a can of Coke. 

He sat outside in the quiet for a minute or two, watching the sun set and listening to the first of the cicadas making their presence known. 

Sam had never really done the nature thing. Sometimes, of course, the van went through mountains or woods and camping (sleeping in the car) was cheaper than a motel. For some reason he never thought he'd like it much. He was a big guy, and strong, but he'd always been such an introverted, indoor child, reticent to join Dean and roadies in pick up games of basketball. 

But the silence of the house, the warm, thick air in his lungs... Sam had never felt so clean before. The fact that his muscles were singing with satisfied exhaustion after the afternoon of hard work didn't hurt. 

“Whoa, sorry, didn't expect anyone out here.” 

Sam turned to see a slight man with a mullet walk out to the porch, a pack of Marlbros in his hand and a can of coke from Pamela's fridge in the other. 

“You mind?” Mullet asked, gesturing to his cigarettes. 

“No, go ahead.” Sam said, turning back to the yard. 

“You never know, you know? Can't smoke anywhere now a days. Sometimes someone rips you a new one just for smoking on the sidewalk. Free country my ass. Free as long as you abide by their puritanical society, man.” Mullet mimicked Sam's pose, propping his elbows on the railing after he lit his cigarette. He gestured the cigarette and lighter to Sam. 

“Oh, ah, no thanks.” 

“Good for you, man. Ain't it a kick? I never had a smoking problem till I quit drinking.” Mullet took a drag, tucking the pack back into his pocket,“Something about getting sober makes you need some nicotine, you know?” 

Sam smiled understandingly, but shrugged. 

“You ever go to the meetings?” Sam shook his head 'no.' “Fuck those meetings. Twelve step is the tits if you get all hot and bothered for Jesus. If you want some other fucking option, you're fucked.” Millet took a frag, pulling it deep and holding it with his teeth bared, squinting up at Sam, “That what you're here for? Getting sober?” 

“Ah, no.” Sam said, smiling slightly, “Just, ah, just meeting with Pamela.”

“Right on.” Mullet said. He finally turned his attention from Sam to the yard. “Oh, shit, you guys finally got rid of that fucking stump!” 

Sam smiled, satisfied despite himself to get recognition for his work. It didn't happen often, for him. Working on a project that had a tangible end result to it. It wasn't a bad feeling at all. 

“Room for one more out here?”

A cue-ball bald headed black man walked out to the porch, a can of coke in his hands to match Sam and Mullet's. He and Mullet clearly knew each other, though, as Mullet swore 'you motherfucker' and pulled cue-ball into a hug. The new man looked at Sam and gave a more tight nod to him. 

“You must be Sam. Pam told me you might be here. Name's Victor.” Victor shook Sam's hand and then slipped his own into his pocket, “I don't want you to think she's unprofessional. She isn't, you know, _telling_ people about you or anything. She just knew I'd be stopping by and I don't do so great with strangers.”

“Victor was in some hard-core war shit.” Mullet said darkly. 

“Sargent Victor Hendrickson.” Victor did a small salute, “Mission Iraqi Freedom.” 

“Saw some messed up shit,” Mullet said again. Victor simply nodded. 

“So,” Sam said, “What exactly does Pamela do? Like, what's her specialty?” 

“Ain't you got Google like the rest of us?” Mullet seemed almost defensive, “She's kinda a big deal, you know.” 

“What Ash is trying to say,” Victor said, narrowing his eyes a bit as Ash sucked his cigarette to the filter, “Is that she does a little bit of everything. Substance abuse,” Ash raised his can of soda in a toast as he flicked the butt of his cigarette into a bush under the porch, “Trauma rehabilitation” Victor gestured to himself, “Family therapy, ah, behavioral disorders like OCD.” Victor shrugged, “She's pretty low key about it, but she's a bit of a legend. I've been going to her for about three years now. She may seem like a kook, but, trust me, she's actually a genius. She knows what she is doing” 

“Hope you boys are talking about me.” Pam breezed, stepped out onto the porch, joined by the dogs. Sam felt a smug pang of reassurance as Pebbles sniffed Victor's hand before sitting down beside Sam. He had a new best friend in this house where everyone else seemed to know each other. 

“Always,” Ash said, with a small wink. “I don't think Sam, the redwood here knew who you were. We were just trying to tell him he was in the best hands in the whole goddamn state. Probably the country.” 

“Well, don't advertise nothing I can't sell, alright?” Pamela smiled, though, leaning her back against the railing so she could face them all at once. 

“Dr. Pamela Barnes” Ash continued, “Invented a kind of neuroleptic that got picked up by a Big Brother Pharma. Now, normally a cog in this capitalistic machine would make me wary, but Pamela is my exception that makes the rule." 

Pamela did look a little embarrassed at that praise, but met Sam's eyes as she explained, “I was just out of med school and working on a big project with a team but ended up coming up with something new. My doctorate was actually in neurochemistry, so it seemed like what I was doing what I had always been planning on doing.” Pamela shrugged, “Oldest love story in the world, turned out I wanted different things. I got a counseling license. And used the money from the patent to set up shop here” 

“Pam is strictly pro bono” Victor added, “Which,” he looked pointedly at Ash, “She couldn't have done without residual checks from that big brother pharma.” 

“Did Ash tell you that he graduated sum cum laude from MIT?” Pam turned the focus back to Ash, “He's not too shabby himself.” 

“That's awesome,” Sam said, “I did the Stanford thing.” 

“Yeah?” Ash raised his eyebrows and looked to Pamela as if asking if Sam was for real. “Right on, man.” 

“Uh, Hudson Community College for me” Victor said after a moment, smiling sheepishly. “Just an old schmo in this crowd.” 

“A self made man.” Pamela corrected with a warm smile. 

The doorbell rang and all four of the dogs leapt up and went charging into the house, barking wildly. 

“Delivery people finally figure out where the house is?” Ash asked as he followed the pack and Pamela through the house to the front door. 

“Fuck no.” Pamela, said without looking back “Sam, can you grab Louis?” 

Sam barely had time to grab the pit bull by the collar when the door opened up and a pretty, thin, sandy blonde woman walked in with a pizza on one hand and a plastic grocery bag on the other. “Hello, all” she said casually, clearly used to Pamela's house being full of people and dogs, “Oh, who's this?” She said after putting everything on the wooden table in the kitchen and seeing Sam. 

She had a British accent and an air about her that implied that she once lived a life that oozed money. As Sam introduced himself and shook her hand, he noted chipped nail polish and her delicate, delicate grip. Perhaps she once had money and a life of leisure, but up close Sam could see the lines of cheap make up over sallow skin. She certainly wasn't what she had once been, whoever that used to be. 

“Where are you going to put him? I pity the thought of him sharing that tiny room with Ash.” 

“Fuck you too, Bells.”Ash said, but lightly and with the vast majority of his attention on pulling a gooey slice of pizza from the box. The woman rolled her eyes but didn't hurt or surprised. 

“Bela, this is Sam. He's not moving in, just for the afternoon and dinner. And tomorrow as well, I hope.” 

“Uh, sure.” Sam helped himself to a slice of pizza and accepted another coke from Victor who was at the fridge, “Do all of you guys live here?” 

“Not Victor.” Pamela said as she perched herself on a chair closest to Bela. “But, yeah to the rest of them. There was one other girl, Meg, who was here for a while. She left a few days ago. I don't have an inpatient program or anything that structured. This is just a place people can go to get better.” 

"I lived here for about eight months,” Victor explained as he sat between Sam and Ash. “That's a bit longer than average.” He tore some of the crust on his pizza. 

“There is no average,” Pamela said quickly, looking meaningfully at Victor “People are here as long as they need to be and then they move on. There have been people who stayed longer and people who left earlier and it doesn't mean anything.” 

“I've been here three months,” Bela supplied.

“Four days.” Ash quipped. 

“You're only four days sober?” Sam asked, genuinely surprised, looking over to Ash. He seemed pretty upbeat and comfortable for someone who recently quit drinking. 

“Yeah, this time around.” Ash didn't seem too ashamed of it, “I'm kinda a repeat offender. This is my third shot here. Pam's been real patient with me.” 

“Sobriety is tough.” Pamela assured him, placing her hand over his on the table “And you were dry for about a year before you relapsed and that isn't nothing, Ash.” 

“She said this is my last shot with her, though.” Ash explained. 

Pamela shrugged, “There are rules, obviously. Rule one is that you gotta stay sober. Even if you aren't here for an addiction, booze is a crutch and there are too many people who have an overlap between addiction and whatever else. You can't be nasty to my other patients. I've kicked people out before for bullying. Obviously I try to relocate but,” Pamela shrugged, “This is a group environment and some people can't really work in the community. My heart goes out to them, they're often the loneliest ones of us all, but I gotta keep my loyalties with my family. So.” Pamela took another bite of pizza as she thought, “Pull your weight, everyone here has jobs to do and they do them. And... “Pamela took a sip of soda as she looked around the table, “Let me see, no sex between my patients or other people living here. I'm no nun or anything. People are vulnerable at this time and sex can turn into a crutch, just like booze can, but worse because there are two people who stand to get hurt. 

Sam must have nodded too gravely at that one, because everyone got very quiet as they watched him. Sam looked around the table and licked his lips, “But sometimes sex can be good, right? Like if someone has a really great relationship outside the group of patients. I mean sex can... can make you feel connected and whole and good. So... So it can't all be bad.” 

The table looked around at each other again before Pamela said, “Of course not, honey.” In a kind voice. 

It sounded a lot like pity. 

_********_

Sam sat around after dinner with the rest of the group. Joining in the conversation every now and then, but listening for the most part. Listening and watching. 

He noticed that no one touched Victor. Pamela seemed to alter herself every few moments depending on who she was talking to. She was playful with Ash, and sarcastic. She was also affectionate; a hand on his or a quick hug at the fridge when he handed her a Snapple. 

She was gentle with Bela, but watchful. Bela probably held her attention through most of the night, even when Pamela was talking to someone else, he could see her watching Bela out of the corner of her eye. 

Bela's reason for being here was clear enough as he watched her poke at a salad while the rest of them devoured pizza. He didn't need Bela to explain. She did anyway, when she caught him watching her. “It's a small meal thing.” she said, “Feeling full triggers the guilt and that triggers the bad thoughts.” He watched Pamela squeeze her knee under the table. 

But no one made a move to touch Victor. Even Victor's body language was guarded, with arms crossed over his chest and leaning back in his chair a bit. He didn't welcome the community of the table in a physical sense, but he was watching and listening like Sam was. After realizing that, Sam also noted how people would announce when they were going to stand up to go to the bathroom and the fridge and though no one looked directly at him, Sam knew they were doing it for Victor. 

Victor who didn't do great with strangers and had been though some hardcore shit. 

At about ten at night, Sam decided to call it a day, agreeing to come back the next one. 

Sam was just stepping off the porch after giving Pebbles an extra long ear scratch when he heard Victor calling after him. “Yo,” he said, walking quickly to catch up, “You got a car? Do you want a ride?” 

Dean had insisted that he drop Sam off and pick him up. 

Probably to make sure that Sam went at all. 

“Uh, sure. My brother drove me here. Let me text him and tell him I won't need a ride home.” 

“Cool, you can do it on the way?” They headed toward a Honda, “Hey, so I really hope we didn't scare you away or anything. They're good people. I hope you'll stick around.” 

“Yeah.” Sam mused as they got into the car. He looked out the passenger window, “Yeah, I'm definitely coming back tomorrow.” 

“Can I be invasive?” 

“Want to know what I'm in for?” 

“You don't have to tell me if you don't want. We're all pretty open with each other but we don't need it from you. I just thought... well I just thought maybe you wanted to talk about it but no one had asked, you know? So. I'm asking.” 

“It's fine.” Sam said, leaning back in his seat, “I, uh, I guess I just don't know how to really phrase it. I guess I'm here because... I get upset sometimes. And I don't handle it well.” Sam snorted, “Actually, I don't handle it at all.” 

“Like, suicide upset?” Victor glanced at him out of the corner of his eye as he drove. 

“No.” Sam said, leaning back. “I get.. violent. I mean, not as a habit. But the last couple of times... yeah. Yeah. Anger management is the term for it, probably. I get mad and I literally see red. I can't fucking see anything else but that and... people got hurt. So. So. Yeah." 

“Shit.” Victor breathed, “I would have never guessed. You seem pretty cool headed.” 

Sam shrugged, “I mean... it's almost never to strangers. Only people I love. Which is so much worse” 

“Oh, trust me, I know.” 

“Can I be invasive now?” Sam asked and Victor looked at him, smirking. He nodded and Sam continued, “What makes you need to see Pam?” 

“Me? Well, lots of stuff. War fucked me up in the head pretty bad. It started out with night terrors which meant I ended up not sleeping. I couldn't focus on anything. Couldn't get a job. I left my wife because I wasn't even a shadow of the man she married... She would have gone down with this sinking ship, I could see it in her eyes, but I think she was relieved when I ended it. She would have been able to deal with me coming home with no legs or no arms but this,” Victor tapped his temple with his finger, “Ain't so easy to fix or work around. How do you stay married to a woman when she can't touch you? Like living with a walking ghost. It wasn't fair to her or me. Left my wife and moved in with Pam. It's better, there. You should think about it.” 

“Moving in?” 

“Sure. Why not?” Victor glanced over at Sam again, “I mean, it's a cool place. There's lots of dogs and stuff to do and everyone there... I can't explain it. Everyone fucking understands _it_. We're all so different, fucked up in a million different ways, but we all come together and try to get better. You can talk about it literally whenever you want to, you've got Pam and a houseful of sympathetic ears. And, honestly, being there, away from everyone and everything... it was like I could breathe, you know? I didn't have to worry about blending or compartmentalizing. I didn't have to pretend to be anything for anyone. If I was having a bad day, I could just say, 'This is a bad day' and they would work around it. No one pitied me. No one tried to fix me unless I asked for help. I could be me, fucked up me, when I needed to be and it was exactly what I needed. It's a beautiful thing; being in a place where you don't have to be who you used to be or be the person you think they want. Just promise you'll consider it.” 

“I don't know...” Sam said, “I mean, you guys are great and I'll probably be by all the time—” 

“Oh, yeah.” Victor let out a small laugh, “Oh, you got a little someone. That's right, way you were talking about it at dinner.” He smiled, shaking his head, “Shit, I forgot all about that. Man, if you can be in a healthy relationship then keep doing what you're doing. We're all different, you know? So, who is the girl?” 

“Uh, guy.” 

“Oh, my bad,” Victor didn't seem horrified at the thought, “What's his deal?” 

“His name is Gabriel. It's complicated.” Sam said, “But, like, the sex...” Sam made a small laugh, “I promise to not get too graphic but the sex is the best of my life. The happiest I've ever been is when we're... doing it. I've never felt so connected to another person before. Like I was stranded alone on a desert island and one day I looked up and there were footsteps in the sand. Then... there he was. He's probably the love of my life.” 

“Good for you, man.” Victor said. There was something tight about his smile though. Victor was hard to read. Sometimes he'd get tight for no reason. “That's great.” 

Victor glanced at Sam out of the corner of his eye again, but didn't press. 

Sam thought he looked a bit like Pamela when he did that. 

_*****_

Sam came home closer to 11. 

Gabriel was sitting on the bed, pretending to read when he came in. Sam was getting to know Gabriel pretty well, and he knew that Gabriel squinted too much when he was trying to look like he wasn't paying attention. 

“Hey.” Sam greeted, heading to the kitchen and pulling out a bottle of water. He grabbed a beer for Gabriel and headed over to the mattress. 

There still wasn't any other furniture in the place. Not that there'd be a huge amount of space for it, but they still ate most of their meals standing at the counter or sitting indian style on the bed. 

He handed Gabriel the beer and sat next to him on the bed. “You're not having one?” Gabriel asked as he saw Sam's water. 

“Nah. Pam says no booze while in treatment.” Sam shrugged. 

“Pam?” 

“Dr. Barnes. That lady that Dean took me to--” 

“Oh, that's right.” Gabriel was silent for a minute, pulling on his beer, “Where did you go after?” 

“Nowhere. I had pizza there and with them.” 

Gabriel pulled his knees to his chest and rubbed them roughly up and down, making a scratching noise over his jeans, “Look, Sam,” he wasn't looking, though. He was squinting at his beer, “It's not a big... deal. You can do whatever. It's not like we... It's not like we said anything. So. It's fine. If you do.” 

“If I do...?” 

Gabriel took a deep, almost frustrated breath, “That wasn't Dean's car.” 

“Oh. OH. No, that's Victor.” 

“He's good looking.” 

“He's straight.” Sam looked over at him, “And he's a veteran with PTSD that gave me a ride home. What? You think I would go and pick up some guy after my therapy? And then have him drop me off here with you?” 

Gabriel shrugged and Sam felt his pulse kick up a notch; a familiar friend beneath his skin, as faithful as the rising sun. 

“Are you _fucking_ kidding me?” Sam snapped, “I go to therapy for you and you don't even trust me to not go fuck other guys while I'm gone. Are you _fucking kidding_ me with this? Is this a joke to you? I'm out there, trying to be a whole fucking different person and I'm doing it for _you_.” 

Gabriel glared back up at him, “Well, what the fuck am I supposed to think, Sam? You leave for your appointment at 11 am and you come back twelve hours later? You didn't even send a text? And... And we had never talked about...” Gabriel shook his head, lowering his voice, “I didn't even know if you _were_ coming back.” 

Sam wasn't done yet, could only vaguely hear Gabriel over the rushing in his ears, “What the _fuck_ do I have to do?” Sam growled, “ _What the fuck more_ do you need from me to let you know that I'm for real, here? I love you, you dick. I have no clue why but what the fuck can I do to prove to you that I love you? Like I've said a _thousand fucking times_.” 

“I don't know! Quit asking me like I know!” Gabriel sounded almost hysterical, “Jesus, I have no clue what I'm doing but it feels like I'm throwing my life away and you keep rounding on me like I know what to do and I fucking don't ok?!” 

“Really? You're going to pretend like you're some innocent bystander here?” Sam matched him, “Who got the apartment? Who sat at a fucking intervention for me when Dean and Cas were trying to get me into treatment? Who fucking showed up in my room? Huh? Sounds to me like all those times you had a plan” 

“Shut the fuck up, Sam.” Gabriel spat, “Shut the fuck up. You have no idea what I think and you have no idea who I am.” 

“Just...” Sam made a vague, frustrated, strangling gesture and stood suddenly. Gabriel didn't jump, but he leaned back on his elbows so he could crane his head up to see him. 

Sam had no idea why, even when he hated him, the only thing he could think of, the only thing he wanted was this man. Just the way he was, as much as it made Sam's blood boil. Frustration and arousal curled inside him; he wondered for a moment if he'd even be able to get hard if he wasn't furious. 

If he wasn't thinking about Gabriel. 

“Take off your pants,” Sam said, noting the way Gabriel's eyes had gone from whiskey brown to black in a moment, his chest heaving, his crotch swelling, rolling more than natural, more than his breathing, “I need to come before I say anything else.” 

Gabriel did, not taking his eyes off of Sam as he slid them to the ground. 

“Underwear too.” 

When Gabriel was naked, he laid back fully on the bed, stroking himself and watching Sam watch him. He was so fucking beautiful like that, on their destroyed sheets, with hate and frustration and pure lust in his eyes. 

Sam took off his shirt, undid his pants just enough so that he could pull his cock out, could strip it as he watched Gabriel strip his, naked and wonton and everything Sam had ever wanted. 

They watched each other jerk off, panting and grunting and finally, Gabriel bent his knees and thrust his hips up off the bed once, twice, and then he was coming, shiny, slimy spurts along his chest, glistening tracks on his body. 

Sam stepped forward and Gabriel watched him, his body strung out, hazy and high. 

But his eyes were as sharp as ever, on Sam's as Sam kneed up onto the bed, onto Gabriel's body, straddling his chest. 

“I'm going to come all over your face,” 

Gabriel didn't nod, didn't shake his head no, didn't do much of anything besides take his eyes from Sam's face to his cock, watching. 

And when Sam came, Gabriel opened his mouth, let the tail end of a line of Sam's come paint his face, lash over his lid, land on his lips. 

“Fuck,” Sam said, dropping forward onto his arms, his body bowed over Gabriel beneath him. Gabriel looked up at him, with come on his face. He blinked at Sam, sharp and intense and completely, utterly Sam's. “Fuck,” he murmured again, bending down to kiss him, kiss all the come off of his face, try to kiss him into explaining it. _I fucking love you._

He tried to kiss Gabriel hard enough to make him believe it. 

_*****_

Sam and Pamela were weeding when Sam brought up Dean. 

It was still muggy and miserable outside but it felt good to tear up the earth in his hands and whenever Sam sat back on his heels, he could see a difference being made in his project. Something in him swelled when he did it; a small and satisfying sense of purpose. 

The flower bed was nothing to be impressed with, but Pamela said they could drive into town the next day to get things to plant after the flower bed was clean and empty. Sam didn't really care either way, but he liked the sunshine and the smell of the earth when he stuck his hands into it. 

Pam let him talk for a while. Sam told a long winded story about how Dean used to cheat at Scrabble and make up words as he went. When it started, Sam didn't think much of it, probably because he was so young and trusting. 

_“Karmph is a word," Dean would say slowly, like he was teaching Sam something._ It was the same way Dean would talk when Sam asked about anything else, and Dean only lied some of the time. _Dean would point to his side above his hip, “It's that part of your body that hurts when you laugh too hard.”_

_“You seriously don't know what a 'Zadxy' is?” Dean asked, but kind of softly, pretending to save Sam the embarrassment of not knowing the real answer, “It's a things girls use to do their hair."_

Ellen was the one who busted him, looking over his shoulder and saying, _“Dean, I swear, if Sam here never learns how to read or write proper, we'll know who to blame.” But she laughed quietly as she walked away, shaking her head. Dean was howling with laughter when Sam only looked confused._

Sam didn't know why he told the story, he just did. Pamela didn't do anything other than listen and ask him to pass her the trowel. 

_*****_

They were getting lunch the next day, with a bed full of soil and plants in the back of Pam's truck when Sam told her about Cas and Dean. 

It was a drive through taco stand and they sat in the front seat, eating companionably. There was dirt under his nails and Pamela had soil on her face. She smelled like sweat and earth and whatever deodorant she used. It wasn't a bad smell at all. Sam figured he probably smelled the same. 

“It was just a surprise, that's all.” Sam was saying, fishing the last of his chips out of the bottom of the bag, “Not only that Dean would be gay after literally a lifetime of zero clues but that he would pick a guy like Cas.” 

“Yeah?” It was one of the first questions that she had asked of him since their first day. Sam didn't even notice until he was halfway through his answer, “What's he like?” 

“Quiet. Serious. I always figured Dean would be bored by that.” Sam shrugged. 

“Did you ever feel like Dean was bored with you?” 

“Yeah.” Sam said, sipping his soda, “I used to worry about that all the time.” 

“And you're surprised that he decided to spend years with someone when you thought that's what he didn't like about you?” 

“Yeah.” Sam said, “I guess. I'm not saying Cas and I are similar, it's just... when we were kids I always felt like he was fed up with me. Because I acted serious or quiet and he was bored. And now...” 

“Have you ever thought that maybe that's what Dean liked about you?”Sam squinted up at her, “Maybe he didn't think of you being boring. Maybe he liked that you were quiet and serious and when you left he liked it so much he found someone else to be that for him.” 

“I guess not.” 

“You never seem to talk about Dean being a kid too. You don't attribute the insecurities that you had as a kid and a teen to him. In all your stories he seems perfect.” 

“I guess I didn't think much of it.” Sam said. He put down the shovel and sat on the ground. Pamela handed him a bottle of water, “I never think about him being insecure at all. It doesn't seem right." 

“I'm not saying he had the exact same experiences as you,” Pamela continued, sitting beside him. He passed her the bottle and she took a long drink, “I'm just saying that you seem to be narrating your own story and Dean is the hero. Like Superman. Dean doesn't get his feelings hurt, Dean doesn't make mistakes or act carelessly. From my experience, no teenager in the history of the world is like that, besides sociopaths.” 

“Yeah.” Sam said. 

“Why don't you try telling me a story where you are the hero?”Sam thought for a moment. The moment dragged on and on. “It doesn't have to be right now. Just think of one and tell me whenever you've got it, ok?” 

Sam nodded and they ate the rest of their lunch in companionable silence. 


End file.
